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by Deb Shaw
Midnight (Eastern Daylight Time), August 31, 2018 is the last day to register for the American Society of Botanical Artists 24th Annual Meeting & Conference in St. Louis!!
Come spend time with fellow botanical artists, take workshops, and attend lectures. Spend quality time at the Missouri Botanical Garden, one of the world’s top botanical gardens. Founded in 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden is the nation’s oldest continuously-operating botanical garden and a National Historic Landmark.
The Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri will host “Out of the Woods: Celebrating Trees in Public Gardens, the Third New York Botanical Garden Triennial” exhibition of botanical art along with a companion, adjunct exhibition “Out on a Limb.” A reception for conference attendees will be held Thursday, October 11, and will also feature the slideshow of artwork from the 25-country Botanical Art Worldwide exhibitions.
To register, look at the descriptions and information on the ASBA website. Then go to the Conference Registration website to register. Scroll down on the registration site to see openings remaining in various workshops and presentations. There are a lot of openings left in wonderful workshops!
If you’ve already registered but would like to add a class, contact the conference registrar to request the additions to your registration.
by Deb Shaw
Tania Marien’s James White Award
The ASBA announced their annual awards last night at the closing banquet. Tania Marien was presented with the James White Service Award for her dedication to botanical art, in recognition of her distinguished support of botanical art.
Lesley Randall’s ASBA Award for Scientific Botanical Illustration
Lesley Randall was presented with the ASBA Scientific Illustrator Award for Excellence in Scientific Botanical Art, in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a scientific illustrator.
George Olsen was presented with the ASBA Diane Bouchier Artist Award for Excellence in Botanical Art, in recognition of his outstanding acheivements as a botanical artist.
Unfortunately, the three award winners were not present to receive their awards in person. When Tania and Lesley’s names were announced, however, the BAGSC table cheered loud enought to hear back in Southern California. Congratulations to the award winners for richly deserved recognition!!
by Beth Stone, posted by Deb Shaw
The Techniques Showcase featured three artists covering a very broad range of approaches: Hillary Parker, Ann Swan, Kelly Leahy Radding.
Hillary Parker shared her artistic problem-solving approach to very large format botanical watercolors which most of us would surely consider impossible! First was a driftwood commission on 40 x 60 inch, 300 lb cold press paper. The second was a 9 foot long (!) watercolor of a stone wall with a foreground of woodland plant silhouettes worked in masking fluid. Can you imagine fitting such a massive work in your studio? Then consider how you would maneuver yourself and your paints around to work on it!
Ann Swan completed a kiwi botanical in front of our eyes as just a portion of her wonderful segment of the Techniques Showcase. The seemingly magical techniques Ann demonstrated included: colored pencil layering strategies; exploiting colors that resist adhesion of subsequent layers (for example, creating veination); use of alcohol-based solvent or baby oil (actually not oil, but dilute paraffin) to blend and spread color; and embossing to create fine hairs for kiwi and pussy willows.
I’m told Ann’s blog is one to watch. She posted photos of the Chihuly glass sculpture exhibit currently at the Denver Botanic Gardens. http://annswan.wordpress.com
Finally Kelly Leahy Radding demonstrated the technique she used to paint the beautiful water lily she entered in the show’s Small Works exhibit. The water lily is painted with gouache on a dramatic black background. Kelley demonstrated her painting process with gourds. She shared a tip regarding both zinc white and the warmer titanium white. Both dry with a slight blue cast which can be counteracted by mixing in just a touch of yellow.
As a special additional treat to complete the Showcase, John Cogley, founder, President and CEO of Daniel Smith, spoke on the manufacture of pigment. The process involves fracturing/cleaving the crystalline materials rather than grinding them. It was great to see the actual mineral samples John brought including a beautiful, huge, piece of Lapis. John graciously answered audience questions: explaining that his company bought out all the Quinacridone close-out stock, so we will always be able to buy a consistent Quinacridone Gold; that we shouldn’t be concerned if Gum Arabic binder oozes from a newly opened tube, it’s just excess that rose to the top; and we should use distilled water in our painting work rather than introduce tap water impurities. Deb Shaw went to John’s lecture, and will include pictures in the next posting.
Posted by Deb Shaw
BAGSC members at the conference are: Beth Stone, Cristina Baltayian, Deborah Friedman, Deborah Shaw, Gayle Uyehara, Lori Vreeke, Melanie Campbell-Carter, Nina Antze, Sally Jacobs, and Terri Munroe. We are going to try to post some photos and updates as we can. I’ll confess, the blog postings aren’t behaving well from my iPad, but we’ll do what we can.
Wednesday evening was the kick-off opening reception for the Small Works exhibition. Gayle Uyehara took a panoramic view of the reception.
Photo by Gayle Uyehara.
The Small Works is one of my favorite exhibitions. It’s wonderful to see the range of art and creativity. This year is no exception. As always, it’s hard to get close to the art at an opening, so I’m glad to get to go back today for a more careful look.
The hotel is within walking distance of the 16th Street Mall, with lots of shops and restaurants, and easy access to the Denver Art Museum. A free shuttle runs the length of the mall. Gayle, Sally, Anita Walsmit Sachs and more friends from the Netherlands, Esmee Winkel and Marianne van der Stee-Kuiper went to dinner at the Tilted Kilt, and reported the people-watching was excellent.
Left to right: Gayle Uyehara, Esmee Winkel, Marianne van der Stee-Kuiper, Sally Jacobs and Anita Walsmit Sachs-Jansen.
Sign for the Tilted Kilt. Photo by Gayle Uyehara.
The 16th Street Mall in Denver at Sunset, photo by Gayle Uyehara, © 2014.
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