Yesterday we looked at a 19th Century natural history artist with enduring appeal, today we focus on an outstanding modern day one. Rachel Pedder-Smith is a contemporary botanical artist who achieved acclaim for her Herbarium Specimen Painting, first exhibited at Kew Gardens in 2012. At five meters long, this large-scale watercolour montage of plant bits …
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a German zoologist, philosopher, professor, physician, naturalist, biologist, writer and natural history artist. So somewhat of an overachiever then. He is on record for having done lots of significant things, like discovering over a thousand new species, coining the term ecology and selling Darwin’s theory of evolution to Germany and the …
Woody Campbell is taking one photo a day for the rest of his life. Not just any old photo, but a really nice one. He then puts it on his photo blog for us all to enjoy. Since he has been going for 1,645 days now, he is able to offer up interesting comparisons too. …
On paper the Goaman’s marriage was made in heaven. They both lived together and worked together, but that’s not the good bit. They also designed stamps together and better still, a large number of those had a botanical theme. Is there a more pleasurable activity you could possibly do with your partner? Michael and Sylvia …
Fabric designs are teeming with botanical and floral artistry this Spring as always – plants are always on trend, every season, in one form or another. We particularly like those designers that avoid the well-known plants and floral cliches, going instead for something different. Ferns seem to be popular at the moment with both Sanderson …
Patrick Caulfield, CBE, RA (1936 – 2005) is a celebrated UK artist, immediately recognisable for his bold, reductive, outline heavy creations of everyday objects. The critic Christopher Finch described him as a “Romantic disarmed by his own sense of irony”. He somehow managed to paint very little but portray so much. Although considered an ‘urban …
Plant Curator was lucky enough to see Yoko Ono perform (music) at the Royal Festival Hall c.2005. She was a petit, yapping, avant-garde wonder, shiningly entertaining at that. She currently has a major retrospective of her career that spans five decades at Guggenheim Bilbao. It shows just how much she has achieved. She is her …
Street artist ATM paints naturalistic representations of endangered birds on empty walls in London. The birds are not tiny like birds generally are, but magnified to cover large expanses of brickwork or concrete. Take a look at his birds, they are quite brilliant. Set against manufactured surroundings, each bird’s colour and form seems strikingly exotic …
Usually you can see Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia at Tate Britain, but it was recently loaned out to Japan and now is in Turin, after that maybe somewhere else. It is good to share. For most interested people around the globe a digital or printed image is all that they are ever likely to …
Alex Monroe is a man that creates mostly nature-themed jewellery for women. He draws inspiration from the Suffolk countryside where he grew up and it’s his plant-inspired pieces that we like the most. All of his jewellery is pretty with a vintage, hand-crafted appeal, but it is much more than that, especially when he brings …