Fresh Inspiration:

NZ House and Garden's July edition http:///nzhouseandgarden.co.nz has a feature article on Terrie Reddish www.terrie-reddish.co.nz a New Zealander who specialises in exquisite coloured pencil botanical drawing. I had the pleasure of meeting Terrie just over a year ago at a botanical art workshop. Australian tutor Leonie Norton www.botanicalart.com.au led our group for four enjoyable days and I had a rare opportunity to meet and talk to other local botanical artists. Terrie and the very nice Sue Wickison (see website link at right of this page) both brought in some of their award winning work from the UK's Royal Horticultural Society. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to view such accomplished work 'in the flesh'. In the magazine article Terrie talks about her remakable success at the RHS and the reasons behind her motivation to take up botanical art. She also writes an excellent newsletter http://terrie-reddish.co.nz/Newsletter.pdf  and in the latest post, interviews Jill Roche another New Zealander who also recently (March 2010) achieved success at the RHS.

Interestingly I've just received the Winter issue of The Botanical Art Society Of Australia (link at right) Newsletter, and here Australian botanical artist Maggie Munn writes of her own experience of winning a medal in March at the RHS. She comments on the magnificent standard of work from an international group of selected artists and is very encouraging of anyone thinking of entering.

Speaking of which - I've just become aware of time slipping away and that the deadline for entries into Canberra Botanical 2010 is fast approaching. You may remember from an earlier post that I was unsure whether to start a completely new work or submit something already finished. I'd actually started a prepratory drawing in watercolour at the above workshop and after months of intermittent work - I think I might just have something that I'm happy to submit for exhibition. Here's a retrospective peek at the work in progress.

"Fatsia japonica" detail
Pencil and watercolour on Fabriano watercolour paper
Coyright (All rights reserved) Denise I Ryan 2009