Hello dear followers. I am alive and well and getting back in the saddle after a week-long intensive botanical art workshop with Anne-Marie Evans. Yes, THE Anne-Marie Evans, a veritable phenom in the botanical art world. She is constantly on the road giving workshops around the world and I was lucky enough to participate in one organized by Botanical Artists for Education and the Environment. I took with me several scanned copies of my finished pieces as well as our friend, the flame azalea, for her professional critique. We were to arrive ready to work on something new, so I took preparations for that, as well.
Suffice it to say it was an intense week. Anne-Marie is an incredible teacher. She gets right down to business; so even though we were coping with the power outage effects of superstorm Sandy, we cobbled together enough flat surfaces and light sources temporarily in someones living room to begin working as soon as the storm would allow. When she critiques, she really critiques. (She reminded us, "After all, you are paying me a lot of money to be here, so I give you the full and unvarnished truth about your work.") Her practiced eye kept finding errors in my painting: places where the detail was inaccurate or the color was all wrong. As soon as she drew my attention to the problem, I'd see it too, and wonder why I hadn't got it right the first time. At the end of each day I would sadly pack up my things, ready to throw in the towel on my composition (Why did I tackle something so enormous and difficult??). And I'd slink back to my lodgings completely deflated. (To one of my classmates she said: "I know I'm fierce. I've been known to bring artists to tears!") But by the next day I was ready to try again, and I'd get to class even earlier in the hopes that extra time would work to my advantage. Somehow, some way, I was determined to succeed.
I was working on a specimen of Swiss chard:
And while she was very pleased with my pencil drawing:
She was not impressed with my early painting.
I think I was nervous, to tell the truth. Can you imagine bending to a task and having The World Expert hovering over your shoulder watching you work? She kept questioning my rush to work on color before the form was fully set down. On Wednesday, she suggested I add a study of the root system to make the painting more interesting, so I had to go home and dig up one of the other plant roots in the pot without killing my subject:
and then somehow fit that into the composition:
Long about Thursday, she realized I really did know what I was doing; I just went about it a different way than she does. This helped us a bit. Finally her words made sense to me and I began to achieve the effects she was describing. On Friday I decided to get her advice on my flame azalea. I thought I was nearly done, but au contraire! So much to correct and redo! So much more depth to convey! And I can't tell you how many times she walked by my table reminding me to dull the garish leaf color. ("But it's a spring leaf!" I kept screaming inside my head...) By Saturday I was exhausted but thrilled with all I had learned. It has been a long time since I've taken a class; and I think years of basking in the glow of my family's praise has kept me from refining my craft. Now I think I've taken my skill to the next level, really.
See what you think:
OK, I know. I do still have to increase the intense tones to convey the depth more. And fix the width-of-the-stem issue. And paint the stamen ever so delicately and with varying detail and strength of color to convey aerial perspective. But maybe, just maybe, this painting can be salvaged after all.
And then I'll get back to the Swiss chard . . .
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