Botany Studies

Hi, all.

Following my decision to focus on botanical illustration, I decided to relearn some of what I knew about plant structures and also learn a lot more about their inner workings. As I actually would like to train to become a plant ecologist/botanist it's not really enough to just what I see: I actually want to know how they work. It's quite a great pairing this, the fusion of botanical/ecological study with art practice. Of course, I'm not really going to be drawing or painting the internal structures of plants to the degree that I've featured here, but from a scientific point of view it's much needed knowledge. I find drawing things and turning them into diagrams really helps in remembering how things work. You can see I attempted to shade the flower on top left, but I decided to just jot things down thereafter. The goal of this first page was just to familiarise myself with basic/intermediary botany instead of showing any real artistic skill.

So now that I've drawn some plant parts (mostly reproductive - I've missed out bark characteristics, leaf shapes, and fruit types here - there's so much to cover) I'll think I'll go ahead and start on a few case studies and actually get to drawing and colouring some plants as accurately as possible.

Thanks.

Botanical Drawing

I have tried plenty of hobbies over the years, but I find that only one or two really stick. I've always drawn and there are times I become focused on drawing, but mostly I just draw when I feel like it. Nowadays I draw mostly landscapes and work on cartography. I've always liked the idea of botanical drawing and have tried to come up with my own fantastatical creations. After some thinking, I've decided to refocus on drawing, specifically of the botanical variety. It goes hand in hand with my ecological studies as well as just being good practice.

My goal is to have a good catalogue of drawings of many of Britain's plant species, but also world wide too. I might try my hand at water colour in the near future, which is something I've never really attempted, but I know it's the preferred medium. In fact the last time I used paint was in school, 6 years and a half years ago. So yes, I'm definitely interested in using traditional methods.

Will probably update this blog with a new drawing at least once every few days, seeing as right now I have a lot of free time.

Edit: I'm also editing and rearranging my Youtube channel as I will be uploading a vlog on my progress in botanical/landscape art, as well as continuing with cartography.