Botanical Art Portfolios – serie

Get up close to the beauty and detail of nature through the artwork of award-winning UK artist, Julia Trickey. See how ordinary and sometimes overlooked subjects, such as leaves and fading flowers, can be centre stage and come to life in this beautiful showcase of some of Julia's best-loved botanical watercolours.Having been a tutor of botanical art for many years, teaching as far afield as Moscow and New York, Julia loves to help others explore the potential of watercolour and to discover the keys to a good botanical portrait. In this book she shares some of these insights as well as the motivation behind her favourite projects, together with some of the processes and watercolour techniques involved. Take inspiration from these glowing, contemporary watercolours in a book that is both beautiful and useful.

Discover a whole new realm of botanical painting – the natural life forms that coexist with flowering plants, revealed in exquisite detail. Traditionally, botanical art has focused on the flowers, leaves and form of plants. They are depicted in solitary glory on a page, divorced from the life forms that live alongside them in nature. But award-winning UK botanical painter, Christina Hart-Davies, believes passionately that flowers are only part of the picture and loves to explore the different stages, related species, habitats and associated creatures that provide their setting in the wild. She looks at plants and other life forms from all angles – scientific, aesthetic and cultural – to tell The Whole Story. Showcasing examples of her most popular works, The Whole Story draws on Christina’s long and parallel careers in both art and illustration. Take inspiration from her enthusiasm for the details and beauty of all aspects of the natural world and benefit from her experience as she shares techniques for painting moss and insects as well as advice on composition and lettering. This book will transform your perspective and inspire you to look beyond the flowers.

What are the ingredients for a successful career as a botanical artist? In The Tapestry of Life, Susan Christopher-Coulson identifies the threads that have formed the warp and weft of her profession: the natural world and her love of drawing woven together with skills in design and making. Working in coloured pencils on board or watercolour paper, Susan's enthusiasm for joyful juxtapositions of colour and form is infectious and a practical section detailing the tools of her trade along with a step-by-step tutorial featuring a broken English Florists' tulip will equip readers interested in trying the medium for themselves. Take inspiration from the compositions, the subjects and the presentation of Susan's award-winning work but most of all, from the joy that permeates this account of a life spent making botanical art.

Take a fresh look at the world through the lens of a self-confessed nature-obsessed artist. Asuka Hishiki possesses not only a sense of profound awe and wonder at the intricacies of the natural world, but also the talent to communicate it through her paintings. Recalling the Wunderkammer (literally, 'wonder rooms') of 16th and 17th century European collectors, Asuka Hishiki's Botaniphoria: A Cabinet of Botanical Curiosities encompasses subjects as diverse as rotting vegetables, endangered species, mundane weeds and backyard insects - all treasures to her and transformed into objects of intense and fragile beauty through her skill with watercolour. Her work is held in prestigious collections such as The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, California, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pennsylvania.