Course - Aspects of botanical illustration

Mon 22 July - Fri 26 July 2013, 10.30am - 5.30pm

A five day course suitable for beginners or more experienced artists, introducing a range of botanical illustration techniques.

Course: Aspects of botanical illustration

Sketching at Kew

Event details

Date: Monday 22 to Friday 26 July, 2013
Time: 10.30am - 5.30pm
Tutors: Annie Farrer and Gillian Barlow
Venue: Kew Gardens
Course Fee: £320 (£300 Concessions, Friends). Deposit payable on enrolment: £50.
Booking: Essential - maximum capacity 15 places.

How to book - download the booking form (pdf) or email for further information.

About the event

This five day course, suitable for beginners or more experienced artists, offers a range of subjects and disciplines to deepen both your understanding of, and ability to draw and paint, botanical subjects.

The first two days are spent learning about the aims, uses and development of a sketchbook - venturing out into the Gardens (weather permitting!) for inspiration and field notes. Learning how to draw from a pressed botanical specimen, another useful skill for botanical illustration, is taught on day three.

The final two days are dedicated to pen and ink composition work, building up form and texture using line and small marks.

‘Brilliant course and good value for money’

Annie Farrer has worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in a freelance capacity since 1974. She began with work on various floras in pen and ink and later also took on colour illustration for Curtis’s Botanical Magazine as well as other Kew projects such as Grasses of Bolivia and a monograph on the genus Biarum. She combines this with carrying out private commissions, teaching and lecturing.

Gillian Barlow studied at London University’s Slade School of Fine Art, and later gained an MA in Art History at the University of Sussex, following this with a PGCE. She has always been a painter, mostly in watercolour, and has also worked as a signwriter, children’s book illustrator, and for the past 25 years as a Herald painter at London’s College of Arms. She teaches at Chelsea Physic Garden and the English Gardening School. She has painted plates for Kew’s Curtis Botanical Magazine, and has work in public and private collections, mainly in UK and USA.