Botanical Illustrator's Handbook E-Book

Sally Pinhey

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 184

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The Botanical Illustrator's Handbook takes a closer look at how to accurately portray the riches of the botanical world. It tackles and explains many of the difficulties that artists encounter so they can extend and expand their choice of subject matter. Written by a respected artist and drawing on her wealth of experience, it offers new insights and a fresh approach to the wonders of botanical illustration.Topics covered include: advice on the labelling and quality of paper, and choice of pencils, paints and brushes; techniques for the mixing and handling of greens; chapters on magnification, managing detail and using scale bars; instructions for using perspective techniques, and painting complex structures such as pine cones and umbellifers, and tricky details such as hairs. Full of advice on labelling, quality of paper, artist materials and mixing techniques and superbly illustrated with 160 colour illustrations.

Leseprobe

THE

BOTANICAL

ILLUSTRATOR’S

HANDBOOK

Sally Pinhey

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2014 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© Sally Pinhey 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 718 2

Frontispiece: Semillon grape.

Contents page: Parochetus communis.

Dedication

To all my students past and present who asked the questions.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the following people who have helped in producing this book. My husband Roger Pinhey for domestic forbearance, proof-reading and support; Dr Tom Cope, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, for checking the Latin; Simon Champion for technical advice and support; Paul Lunberg for computer help; Margaret Tebbs for her advice and support; Peter Berry for information on the Grenfell Medal; Rosemary Thompson of Rosemary’s Brushes for information on brushes; Jim Patterson of 2 Rivers Paper for information on paper; Maggy Clarke, Nigel Hewish.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR MATERIALS

2.

MAGNIFICATION – SEEING IS BELIEVING

3.

USING PERSPECTIVE TO CREATE DEPTH

4.

THE TROUBLEWITH GREENS

5.

STEMS, LEAF JOINS AND HAIRS

6.

FIBONACCI AND OTHER MATHEMATICAL MODELS

7.

COMPLEX STRUCTURES ANDWHITE FLOWERS

8.

EPHEMERAL FLOWERS

9.

FIELDWORK

10.

UNDERSTANDING PLANT NAMES IN LATIN

11.

PROTECTING AND EXHIBITING YOURWORK

Appendix A – Plant Conservation Organizations and Useful Contacts

Appendix B – Latinate Words used in Plant Names

Bibliography

Glossary

Index

Lychees.

INTRODUCTION

‘I don’t know why you bother. I could do that in a hundredth of a second with my camera’ and ‘You have wasted your paper’ are among the most deflating remarks that can be made to a botanical artist. Yet we do bother more and more. It is true that photography is a quicker and therefore much cheaper means of illustration. Cameras and digital enhancement also improve so fast that every year it is possible to achieve more with them. Yet the artist’s eye sees in a different way to the camera; the artist can analyse and isolate and show flower parts more clearly and with greater charm. The artist can also show stages of development and different seasons in one illustration so that it contains a more useful body of plant information.

While photography may have robbed botanical illustrators of some of their markets, it has also contributed to some of their techniques, helping to capture fleeting information on fragile structures. In the same way that improvements in optical instruments since the eighteenth century promoted botanical interest and discovery, so time-lapse photography has aided plant understanding for both scientists and illustrators. Where a painting has invested a flower with a glacial china-like stillness, however, I tend to think that the source photograph for it might have served equally well.

Go to any specialist botanical art exhibition in a city or country area and you will see a breath-taking selection of meticulously-painted flowers and plants. The strength and depth of botanical art skill in many countries are a source of wonder and delight. These artists have practised for years and reached the point where work of a high quality can be shown. For someone who teaches the subject, as I do, the popularity of this art form is most gratifying. The work on show gives little hint of any underlying weaknesses. Yet talk to the artists and ask why they chose that particular subject to paint and another view of the range of skills may emerge.

Naturally artists have their preferred subject matter. This may be influenced by personal attraction to colour or shape, academic interest, what grows in their garden, or by process of elimination what they choose not to paint because it is outside their comfort zone.

How often has an artist longed to paint a flower and found it has wilted before even the first drawing is complete? How many paintings on display show an uncharacteristically reduced amount of foliage? How many flowers are shown only face on or in profile to avoid the difficulty of a three-quarter view?

A love of plants is a given for botanical artists, and a love of colour will draw many to the blowsy garden varieties. Yet most plants are worthy of attention and description, and many are quite challenging in terms of composition and pictorial qualities.

While the botanist’s description and botanical key will serve to identify a plant, the old adage ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ holds true, especially if the picture is accurate. Botanical artists may yet hold the key to public plant awareness and conservation at a time when animals hold centre stage in research funding.

This book aims to deal with the difficulties that limit the choice of the artist’s subject. It should challenge and extend the perimeters of comfort zones, making the artist confident and versatile so that there is no plant that presents insuperable difficulties for botanical illustrating.

•

Recurring questions about the labelling and quality of papers, pencils and brushes are answered.

•

The use of perspective in flower drawing and composition are addressed, so that the position of the plant on the paper need not be adjusted to cover for lack of foreshortening skills.

•

Formulae for tackling complex structures are shown.

•

Ideas for coping with short lived (ephemeral) plants are given together with when to use a camera, the purpose of sketches and plant care.

•

Painting in the field, and tricky details such as hairs are addressed.

•

The use and knowledge of botanical terms and Latin names are also explained, and what we can pick and if we can copy.

•

Finally, there is a chapter on self-promotion, copyright care and mounting an exhibition. Some chapters are packed with straight information, others with personal experience and advice. The difference should be clear.

Bananas.

Much of the technique and comment here applies equally to all media, though the reader will notice the strong bias towards watercolour techniques. The main difference in approach is that watercolour is always painted from light to dark and for other media such as coloured pencil and acrylics the reverse is the case and highlights can be superimposed. I make no apology for thinking mainly in terms of watercolour. It is my speciality. For botanical illustration it is a tried and tested medium with all the versatility and delicacy necessary for our beautiful subjects. Nevertheless many of the concepts in the following chapters are applicable to most media.

Where standard English vocabulary describes a plant part or function perfectly well, it is used. Where special vocabulary is required, it is explained. The glossary covers both botanical terms and Latin names.

In order that the illustrations exactly explain the text, they are mostly my own. The few that are not are either archival examples or shown with the name of the artist beneath. In a few instances similar illustrations are shown side by side in a ‘spot the difference’ quiz style. Given the reduced scale of the illustrations for publication, the differences are very slight, yet they are still worth finding both to illustrate the concept in the text and to highlight the minute differences that make a good work a better one.

You may well ask how I have travelled to this point myself. Is anyone born with a head start in botanical art?

My earliest memory is listening to the ‘skritch, skritch’ of Cotoneaster horizontalis on the outside of the frosted glass of the stoop where my pram was put. I can remember the flavour and texture of the chewed off Rexine of the pram cover on which I pulled myself up, and then sucked. I have no idea how old I was, but I knew the plant as a friend and was later able to put a name to it.

Identifying plant families from shared characteristics has always come easily and yet there are always surprises in store and masses more to learn.

I do know I was seven when my grandmother took me to the RHS gardens at Wisley. (She was one of their earliest members, and I have since placed a memorial to her there.) The lilac was in bloom and I deduced from the shape of its leaves that they were lilac bushes that surrounded the tennis court of a home which I saw only on alternate summers, and had never seen them in flower. Many years later I learned from a cousin visiting from Canada that Kashmiri plant illustrations by another cousin, Dr Marion Smyth, were stored at the Kew Herbarium, and I went to see them. These illustrations, done in the field in note books during World War 2, were all carefully annotated for exact time and place, giving today’s scientists useful ecological information. Was this an indication of inherited interests that would shape the course my life? By means of constantly exercising choices and making small daily decisions and greater ones less often, we adjust the courses of our lives.

Early training and career in social work heightened my awareness of the importance of art as a therapy. Later, married life took me to Italy where for three busy and formative years I travelled, painted and exhibited. Later opportunities to travel permitted indulgence in my concerns over forestation and land use. Exhibiting regularly in RHS shows offered access to seeing the best, and fostered respect for an organization instrumental in defining excellence. Eighteen years as a serving magistrate gave me training and habits in balanced evaluation and fair judging. A lifelong interest in plants and ecology directed my paintings and studies, exploring the parallel world of plants.

My teaching was initially student-led. In the broad art field if someone wanted to know something, I studied and worked out the answers for them. Being to this extent self-educated, I was aware of which insights were really helpful and what delivered the ‘eureka moment’. It was only after teaching for over twenty years that I qualified formally, and now spurred on by regulations, college requirements and anxiety to do the best for my students, hope to go on improving.

This book addresses all those unfinished or would-be paintings in portfolios or on wish lists. For the person with all the skill to observe, compose a picture, draw and apply colour well, there may still be some new territory to conquer.

Colour chart.

CHAPTER 1

UNDERSTANDING YOUR MATERIALS

‘He who has begun his task has half done it’

Horace 65-8BC Epistles

In the artists’ search for the magic sword that will solve all their problems at a stroke, the most lively talk among them is often discussion of the latest piece of kit or colour available. Many groups have among them a kit junkie who will buy and try out all the latest bits of kit. Such a person is your friend. I hope this chapter will amplify and give some background to his or her discoveries. If we understand the organic nature of our materials and the procedures through which they become available to us, we can make better informed choices for our own requirements.

Paper

Paper is the most important of all materials. Even with the best quality paint and brushes it is hard to achieve anything on unsuitable paper. Good quality paper is expensive because it has been specially made for your medium in a complex process.

While the Western world was still using papyrus and parchment, over two thousand years ago the Chinese were developing paper, and by the second century were producing it commercially. There is evidence of pulp mills in Samarkand in the eighth century, and manufacture was taking place in Italy in 1220. Paper was in common use in Germany by 1400, coinciding with and enabling the new printing techniques. Leonardo da Vinci was very careful with it, wasting nothing.

Paper is usually made from wood pulp, but the higher the percentage of other fibres – for example cotton, linen, flax, recycled rag or hemp – the better the quality. It will be stronger, and less acid. First the fibres are made into a slurry, which is thoroughly beaten and mixed. It is then spread and dried, and as the water content is reduced it becomes thinner. Then it is pressed.

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill. Shakespeare, Henry V1, Part2

Since the nineteenth century in Europe paper has been made in a continuous roll using the Fourdrinier machine. It is this process that gives us some of the expressions used today. The paper is run between the rollers to give it a harder surface, and sized with gelatine or modified starches to bind the surface. A cylinder mould mimics hand manufacture by lifting the sheet out of the slurry slowly. The fibre direction is more random, but the slowness of the procedure makes it more expensive.

Wood-pulp paper contains acid, is volatile, and does not keep. Also the action of the rollers in conjunction with the short fibres makes it wrinkle more in one direction than the other when wet. Paper for printing is made hard in order to take the printing inks, while that intended for watercolour is softer but more heavily sized to regulate the absorbency. Some good papers are both internally and externally sized. Hand-made or top quality papers are still set on wire screens to dry in a box frame called a deckle. The process makes one sheet at a time and leaves an uneven edge called a ‘deckle edge’, while the wire screen leaves an imprint called the ‘laid lines’, a feature of the best laid paper. The watermark imprint is made by weaving a design into the wires. Papers intended for watercolour are sized to give a smooth glaze, and a whitening agent may also be added into the finish. Internal sizing improves paper quality and makes it less absorbent. Acid-free paper is made with a chalk filler and has the active acid pulp removed during manufacture. It creates an archival quality of paper for artwork that can be preserved for long periods.

Cold press paper is run through the rollers while they are cold.

‘Not’ paper is the same as cold press, and the ‘not’ stands simply for ‘not hot’. Hot press paper is made once the rollers have heated up because of the length of time they have been running. The effect is to iron the paper and give it a hard, smooth, glossy finish that can resist heavy washes, blending and colour lifting. Hot press paper, even at a magnification of ×35 on the surface, shows no features on its surface.

Cold press or Not paper × 35.

Bristol board is prepared to take pen, pencil and airbrush. It can take a light colour wash, but has not got a suitable finish for successful watercolour painting. The weight of paper also needs some clarification, and it does not help that there are two ways of measuring the thickness of paper. Gsm or g/m squared actually measures the weight of a square metre of paper, which is helpful. The weight of paper measured in pounds (lb) is less clear, in that the weight refers to a ream, which is 500 sheets of imperial-sized paper. Most paper manufacturers now give both weights, which, with small variations for the makes, equate as below:

80lb = 170 gsm

90lb = 185 gsm

140lb = 300 gsm

300lb = 638 gsm

Imperial size is 30 × 20in, half imperial 22 × 15in, and a quarter imperial 15 × 11 in. To paint watercolour with underlying washes without stretching your paper, 140lb, 300 gsm is the minimum weight. Even so, if you know you have some large, broad leaves to do, or a large area over which you will apply an initial wash, it is advisable to stretch your paper. Lighter weights need stretching anyway, unless your medium is a dry one, such as pencil. Some artists favour blocks with sealed edges, which are intended not to cockle. If wet washes are used on them, however, the cockling will go through the entire block and be much worse, so this course is only advisable if you paint quite dry. If you work by transferring your initial sketches on to good paper using a lightbox, you can transfer the drawing first and then stretch the paper with the drawing already on it.

Hot press paper × 35.

The procedure for paper stretching is as follows:

•

Pass your sheet of paper through a container of clean, cold water, free of any soap products.

•

Hold it up to let the excess water run off it, then lay it on a board.

MDF boards have a good finish with about the right amount of absorbency. Shiny boards will not hold the tape needed to anchor the paper (see next point below).

•

While the paper continues to absorb the moisture, cut four strips of brown paper parcel tape the length of the sides of the paper. Draw the gummed side of the strips quickly over some clean water.

When the gum is just evenly moist, lay the strips down the edges of the paper, covering between ½ and ¼in of the paper and the rest on the board, starting with the short sides first.

Bigger pieces of paper will exert more pull on the gummed strip, so you need more tape on the paper. Smaller sheets of paper exert less pull, but the maximum area should be left for the image. The paper will look quite cockled. Pull it gently from the ends to be sure that the brown paper tape will lie flat enough to stick evenly.

Take care not to touch the surface of the paper unnecessarily.

Wetting the paper.

Letting the excess water run off it.

•

Blot any excess surface moisture lightly with a piece of paper towel. The paper must then dry slowly and flat (overnight is good) to give a nice taut surface that will not cockle when wet.

•

Fast or uneven drying will produce a warp, as will a gap between the brown tapes in a corner. Equally, excess water seeping under the edge of the tape will wash the gum off the brown paper and lift it.

Laying it on the board.

Wetting the strips of brown paper parcel tape.

Laying the first gummed strip down a short edge of the paper.

Gently pulling the paper.

Laying down the side strips.

The paper will look quite cockled.

The paper is now dry and flat.

Warped paper is unusable, and the sized surface is unlikely to survive a second stretching. While the current fashion is to have no evidence of paper cockle at all on paintings, it is possible that this will alter in the future. As the difference between prints and originals becomes harder to tell, it could be that the natural organic response of paper to watercolour could become a prized hallmark of the authenticity of the original.

Brushes

It comes as no surprise that the best brushes are said to be made of ‘sable’ – but are they? It is not the sable of nobles and kings or the dowry of Genghis Khan. Sable for fur garments comes from the Siberian sable marten (Martes zibellina), a forest-dwelling, northern Eurasian marten, much prized for the fineness of its fur. This animal is now commonly farmed for ease of collection of pelts. Fine art brushes are made from the tail hair of the Kolinsky sable, or red sable, which is in fact a Siberian weasel, Musleta siberica. The best hair comes from the tail of the male, and the proportion of male hair to female hair will affect the spring and durability of the brush. Unfortunately the animal does not thrive in captivity, so the collection of hair is made by trapping wild animals. Artists will pay a fortune for Kolinsky fur (more per ounce than gold), and the reason that it makes such a good brush is that the tips of the fur are so fine that a minutely fine and even point to a brush can be achieved, together with a substantial belly to the brush, which is where the liquid is held. Artificial brushes, while good and hard wearing, cannot compete with these qualities.

For larger brushes – say, size 6 and upwards – the performance of an artificial hair brush is acceptable, because the size of the brush ensures that it holds liquid well. Below this size, a hair brush is advisable.

The good news is that small Kolinsky brushes cost a great deal less than large ones, but the bad news is that they wear out more quickly. Excessive wear can be avoided by using cheaper brushes for mixing and lifting, and by not using best brushes on rough paper or in cheap paint. Hair conditioner can be used to revive tired brushes, and they should be stored upright out of direct sunlight. Try to keep the handles dry. When travelling or storing brushes, a bamboo roll is one of the best ways of making sure that they will not be bent or damaged. Use your magnifying lens from time to time to check your brush for wear, and if necessary buy the size you use most in pairs so that you always have a new one in reserve if you notice deterioration in the middle of a painting.

Sable brushes in a bamboo roll.

No. 3 ‘spotter’ brush.

Choosing your Brushes