The Big Draw
The national drawing programme, the Big Draw, returns to Kew for the autumn. Focusing on the theme of trees, three workshops run each day throughout half term.
Kew's Big Draw activities have been designed to explore our scientific work through art.
Experts from Kew's Herbarium, Library, Art & Archives department, working with nine artists have created these drop-in workshops designed to reveal some of the scientific research and curatorial work they do in the 'behind the scenes' collections at Kew.
These workshops offer you a chance to be creative, to learn more about the important work going on at Kew, and to have fun, whatever your age!
You might be contributing to our giant forest drawing, creating fungi-inspired artwork or helping to build a pocket herbarium.
To find out what's happening on the day you visit, take a look at our timetable of workshops below.
Workshops running from Sat 24, Sun 25 & Mon 26 October:
(1) Notes From The Underground
Explore the mysterious invisible realm of root systems growing beneath our feet. Help to make a large piece of group land art, by marking out the pattern of different trees’ unique root system using coloured ribbons. You will also receive a tree seed with its own tiny root to take home with you.
Contributing Artist: Louise Clark
Kew Experts: Lulú Rico and Clare Drinkell. Clare Drinkell is an Herbarium Assistant working with the South East Asian Team, curating plants as varied as the delicate primula flowers and the tropical hardwood of the Ebony tree. Lulú Rico is a botanist in Kew's Herbarium, and a specialist on the pea and bean family (Leguminosae), especially in Latin America, where she is involved in teaching students, writing floras (books describing plant species) and providing support to the Millennium Seed Bank.
(2) Build a pocket herbarium
Explore how scientists prepare specimens and look after them, draw your tree to contribute to the Mini Woodland.
Contributing Artists: Patrick Letschka and Lizzie Thomas
Kew Expert: Dr Daniella Zappi is a Brazilian botanist in Kew's Herbarium. Her interests focus on tropical American plants, in particular the cactus (Cactaceae) and the coffee family (Rubiaceae), and she works on projects towards the description and conservation of native vegetation of Brazil.
(3) Help us build a giant forest
Over these three days you can contribute towards our giant forest drawing. Starting with pioneer species, we quickly move onto ground cover plants and then finish by adding drawings of huge forest trees.
Contributing Artist: Tom Grimsey
Kew Expert: Kat Harrington is a digitisation officer in the Herbarium. She is currently working on a project to digitise correspondence received by Kew's Directors from Latin America during the 19th and 20th centuries so that this important material will now be accessible to researchers across the globe.
Workshops running on Tue 27, Wed 28 & Thu 29 October:
(1) Create fungi-inspired artwork
Explore the world of fungi and its relationship with trees, by viewing specimens under microscope and finding out which are the good guys and the bad guys. You will contribute to our ever-growing art piece in the main window of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery.
Contributing Artist: Stuart Simlar
Kew Expert: Dr James Wearn is a botanist in Kew's Herbarium currently undertaking a taxonomic revision of the plant genus Clerodendrum (Lamiaceae) from SE Asia, as part of the long-standing Flora Malesiana project.
(2) Create an archive of trees
Explore how scientists record information about plants and how botanical artists capture their precise detail. Go on a mini-expedition to explore trees using the exact methods established by experts and make an illustrated record.
Contributing Artist: Marianne Holm Hansen
Kew Experts: Julia Buckley and Kiri Ross-Jones. Julia Buckley is a Library Assistant based in the Herbarium, assisting the curators in the care of the 200,000 works of the illustrations collection. Kiri Ross-Jones is Kew's archivist and records manager with responsibility for the 7 million original documents in the historical archives, one of the world's most comprehensive single resources for botanical information.
(3) Cabinet of curiosities
Inspired by Kew's world-famous Herbarium, help us fill drawers with small and precious artistic responses to trees including textured rubbings, collage, drawing, 3D seeds, and illustrated poems.
Contributing Artist: Liz Annelli
Kew Expert: Dr Lauren Gardiner is a scientist studying the orchid family (Orchidaceae) in particular the genus Vanda, from SE Asia. She has studied orchids in the wild and in botanic gardens as far afield as Costa Rica, the Himalayas and South Africa.
Workshops running on Fri 30, Sat 31 October & Sun 1 November:
(1) A Family Tree
Come and help us create our own special order bed - a living library of plants systematically laid out to demonstrate the plant family tree, their relationships and characteristics. Draw plants from different family groups, learn how scientists at Kew identify different species of plants and place your drawing amongst others within its family group.
Contributing Artist: Steven Follen
Kew Expert: Dr Gemma Bramley is a botanist in Kew's Herbarium, specialising in the mint family (Lamiaceae). She also works on the Flora Malesiana project, which aims to document and describe all the plants of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.
(2) Magic Tree
Learn how to tell the difference between plants and help us to create a magic tree full of colours and shapes.
Contributing Artist: Carlos Cortes
Kew Experts: Lesley Walsongham and Sara Barrios. Lesley Walsingham is an assistant in the Herbarium, responsible for the curation of the mint family (Lamiaceae) who has also recently completed a revision of the genus Gomphostemma in Malaysian Borneo. Sara Barrios is a project coordinator in the Herbarium. She manages the Latin American Plants Initiative, a joint initiative from several institutions, partnering with JSTOR, which aims to create an online comprehensive database providing access to all the Latin American type specimens currently housed in many different herbaria.
(3) Create a Herbarium specimen
Create your own imagined specimen of one of eight trees, such as the horse chestnut and the rubber tree. You'll use protologues - descriptions of plants dating back hundreds of years - and then compare your drawing with a photograph from the real Herbarium collection and check out living examples within the Gardens.
Contributing Artist: Eve Peasnell
Kew Expert: Dr Eve Lucas is a botanist in the Herbarium studying the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). She is also contributing to the Flora Neotropica project, which aims to document and describe all the plants of South America.
Prices & Booking Information
FREE, once inside Kew Gardens. No need to book, just drop in at any of the three locations around the gardens. Drop in and see what's happening on the day!
Locations:
There are 3 Big Draw locations in the gardens:
- At the Shirley Sherwood Gallery
- Near Brentford Gate
- Outside the Temperate House
Locations are also marked on the Autumn map you will receive when you arrive at Kew Gardens.
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