A botanical illustration course suitable for beginners and improvers.

Working with specimens from the garden, create accurate botanical studies with guidance from professional botanical art tutor Leigh Ann Gale.

On this 4-session course you will learn the fundamental skills for drawing and painting botanically, including accurate, observational study, the effect of light on plant structures, adding details such as surface textures and veins on leaves, composition processes, and basic botany.

The course will be taught through a series of step-by-step exercises and there will be the opportunity to practise more advanced techniques using watercolour painting, pen and ink and colour pencils.

You will need to provide your own cartridge paper and pencils (2H or H) for drawing, and watercolours and brushes for painting. You will also need some hot-pressed paper for painting however this may also be purchased from Leigh Ann at a small additional cost (usually 50p – £1 depending on size). Please also bring tracing paper if you have it. The use of ink pens and/or coloured pencils is optional – please bring these if you would like to use them.

Leigh Ann Gale trained at The English Gardening School, Chelsea Physic Garden, and since graduating in 2004 has become a Fellow of the Hampton Court Palace Florilegium Society, The Sydney Florilegium and the Nymans Florilegium. She is also an RHS medallist. Her work is featured in The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, USA and included in many private collections both in the UK and abroad. She is the author of ‘Botanical Illustration – the complete guide’. Leigh Ann teaches botanical art and illustration throughout Sussex and Surrey.

Cost: £160 to include tea and cake

Date: 1.30am to 4.30pm – Tuesdays 23 and 30 April , then 7 and 14 May 2019