Botanical Art and Artists

13/09/2026

Pics from the Private View of the opening of the latest ASBA Botanical Art Show. They're going to highlight the winners on FB over the next few days.

13/09/2026

The RHS has started to remind those aspiring to exhibit at future RHS Botanical Art Shows - and hence needing to have their artwork "approved to APPLY TO EXHIBIT" of:
* the date of this year's Selection Meeting which will identify new artists who take a step nearer to an exhibition
* the deadline for getting your FOUR PRINTS OF ARTWORK to the RHS for that meeting!

READ:
* MY SUMMARY BELOW in comments
* PLUS a link to the long version which explains the whole process which I wrote back in July

Image: Chistiane Fashek's RHS Gold Medal winning "most popular with the public exhibit at the RHS Botanical Art Show.

12/09/2026

Many of you will know Stella Ross-Craig for her wonderful pen and ink drawings of "Drawings of British Plants" however she also painted and this is an article about her paintbox by the Linnean Society

Discover the latest news from The Linnean Society of London.

09/09/2026

Two and a half years ago I posted this.
“it’s very odd. My feed for this page is almost completely dominated by the Pages of corporate organisations - notably botanical gardens and groups of artists.
Virtually all individual botanical artists have disappeared from view.
Are you just not posting or are you being submerged in the feed algorithm by Facebook?”

Two and half years later, nothing has changed. If anything it’s got worse.

Facebook really needs an interest for “categories of activity” which allow a filter which takes out everything which is not an individual person.

So artists get a chance to profile what they are doing for all those who would like to see what they’re doing!!

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t see the corporate pages - just that I’d like a filter which eliminates them for a while….

What say you?

08/09/2026

A number of you, like me, will be big fans of the drawings/paintings of H. Isobel Adams who wrote and illustrated “Wild Flowers of the British Isles” - published in two volumes in 1907 and 1910.
You can find the link to my post about the image used for the new Autumn 2026 Banner on my website and this FB page in the comments. It also includes where you can see it online.

05/09/2026

I was at this talk by Lucy Smith at the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society yesterday.
I'll repeat the words from the post below https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc3rBNGs94g/
It was a pleasure to welcome botanical artist Lucy T. Smith to our meeting today.

Lucy is one of our judges who examines all the submitted paintings and gives feedback to the artists on how they can improve their work.

She spoke to us about the importance of scale bars in botanical illustration and how to include them in our work. She also gave some tips on flower dissections. understanding them, making them clear, how to draw them and enlarge them.

Workshops like this one by are one of the huge benefits of being a member of the
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I'd add that Lucy Smith is also one of the long time botanical illustrators at Kew and is also one of the Judges for the RHS Botanical Art Show.
You can see the CPGFS website and instagram here https://cpgfs.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/cpgflorilegiumsociety/
Plus Lucy Smith's website here https://www.lucytsmith.com/ | https://www.instagram.com/palmsmithy/

02/09/2026

Anybody else own a copy of the “Concise British Flora in Colour”?
You can read my review of this book - which I first started to reference when it was first published and I was still in primary school!

A review of a book I first knew in primary school over 50 years ago. It still impresses me.

02/09/2026

I’m a fan of looking at the paintboxes and paints of those who produced botanical art in the past. These are the paints used by W. Keble Martin who wrote and illustrated the Concise British Flora in Colour.
I noted the 3/6 price on the Aureolin Yellow and that seemed expensive to me, so I went looking for the price of W&N Artists watercolours in the early 1960s. Answer is in the first comment below.

25/08/2026

Guy William Eves has an exhibition of his wonderful botanical illustrations in graphite every year at Aldburgh - I just wish it were a bit nearer to me or I’d be there like a shot!

25/08/2026

I’d love to see that!

Wonderful Mary Delany exhibition at Dunham Massey Hall today. Inspirational.