The above photo is intentionally left blank so you can fill it in your mind with flowers. It's my actual garden, right this minute. As you can see winter has definitely left the building, and wavy green grass is a sure sign of spring (summer would not allow this length to happen, so that would be cut grass). Let's plant a whole garden in our mind!
Now I’m inspired by flowers (now, @Susan Dobrian!) - flicking through past projects of mine and rekindling my love for all things flowery - there is a certain type of dramatic, architectural, fabulous flower I’m drawn to but there are 2 blank spaces on the calendar for your suggestions!
I wish I could take you to Kew Gardens. I bought my mother and sister a year’s flower subscription each so they get a new bunch of flowers delivered each month. I wish for everyone to have that, and then you could draw and paint these from life, or at least study flower construction in real life.
In order for us to cover a whole summer of flowers, these courses are 2 sessions long each x 5 months of summer (well, that’s how I’m classifying it in my mind - in some ways I wish it were always summer!) = 10 courses of iconic flowers. I’ll send you an image to trace and transfer in advance as flowers are less involved than faces and we can spend both sessions painting. Not all these flowers were painted by miniature painters… which is exactly why we should paint them and evolve the tradition! and make links with Chinese painting and botanical illustration at the same time - sustained, careful study of these highly symbolic flowers. I'll show you how to take a source photo of a flower and 'miniaturise' it. I'll also make suggestions and show you how to work your flowers into a composition of multiple flowers (as this takes more time, that's all). All Tuesdays 8-10pm GMT.
MAY
The Tulip - indulge me for starting off with my absolute favourite flower of all time, the humble - and mighty - tulip! I got awarded a grant to go to the Netherlands for a month to study all aspects of tulips, their history and fabulousness
The Magnolia - how do you follow a tulip?! - with a magnolia, as kindly suggested by @Mary Yaeger
JUNE
The Rose - the quintessential English flower. And Bulgarian. And Turkish. And a whole host of other cultures that hold the rose close to their heart. June feels like an appropriate time to paint and even eat (yes! - rosewater) roses and think about Alice in Wonderland. If it weren’t for Covid, I’d invite you all for tea - we have roses in our garden
BLANK
JULY
The Lotus - hot, sweltering Indian summers and the lotus as the Buddhist flower. The height of summer and an aquatic flower to cool us down
The Sunflower - self-explanatory, summer in all its glory and also a necessary injection of bright yellow; imagine painting this on turmeric-dyed paper
AUGUST
The Orchid - the sequel to my Tulipmania was going to be Orchidmania, except I never got a grant to go to the jungles of South America and stare at them in the wild (well, I never applied, and also, highly unlikely as UCL are very protective and would worry about all the other things that might eat me in the jungle)
The Bird of Paradise - architecturally fabulous flower, self-explanatory, and we can make links (in all of these courses actually) to botanical illustration, as the Mughals did too
SEPTEMBER
The Peony - September is still summer, kinda, but also winding down into autumn and the Chinese peony somehow seems appropriate here, and also to study the links between miniature painting and Chinese painting which is so in love with the peony in particular
The Calla Lily - ok, acknowledging it is probably autumn now and saying goodbye to summer spectacularly
Possible ideas for BLANK - the anemone is a lovely and simple flower, the flower that children draw when asked to draw ‘a flower’; the crocus - imagine painting a crocus on saffron-dyed paper; the sweet pea - I love its fragrance (not that paintings can capture that!); the snapdragon… has a great name!
This is brilliant, Vaishali! I think that your course descriptions are an art in and of themselves. You've created a new genre of writing: inspiring syllabi.
That's a nice way to look at it - I too look at syllabi and get inspired by them - eg ways to teach children and wish I'd been taught those things/in those ways! For example, there was one live event years ago for kids incorporating miniature paintings and teaching children archery. I so wanted to sign up my kid for that! But he was a toddler and far too young at the time!
Yay!!!🎉🎉🎉🌸🌺🥀🌻
Yessss! 8-10pm GMT evening flowers (dinner first!). This will be lovely in the British summer which will also hopefully be an Indian summer and I look forward to the late balmy evenings with you all. Such a pleasure!
I love the flowers as a theme, and yes on red roses and tulips and all the #1 flowers you've chosen for each month. But I'm wondering if the flowers could be growing in a garden, or worked into a composition, rather than like botanical illustration? They are highly symbolic after all. Maybe the second two weeks of the month could be the flowers with something, or in a garden? What about something that expresses their significance in miniature painting in the traditional garden? The more ambitious students could portray a figure, hands, etc. That amazing face #4 comes to mind.
Full disclosure: I had wanted to learn botanical illustration, until I visited the Huntington here in LA for a Botanical Society show. The illustrations felt a bit rigid or sterile, making me realize it was not for me. I have a preference/bias in favor of cultural reference and personal expression in the way images are presented.
That's a good idea @Mary Yaeger , thank you! So to keep those blank spaces free for compositions, and everyone to work on their own individual compositions as they add flowers, as those could be carried across the other blank weeks, is that what you mean? I think there are enough blank spaces for this.
Your second idea - flowers in a hand? Yes, Mehmet II is certainly holding a flower, and you mean something with a flower in that sense...
Not all the flowers, by the way, will be single blooms floating in the middle of a page. For instance, the lotus one in my mind needs to have lilypad style leaves and possibly water around it, the orchid needs a bit of jungle and another flower could actually be part of a tree, as yes there should be some variety.
Botanical illustration - I hear you, I feel the same. They are also dryly scientific and have to be accurate, and I also prefer my art to have a bit of a life spark in them, which we can infuse them with. I think botanical illustration is still a worthy pursuit, but for me I'd like to invest any teaching of careful botanical subjects with life and energy.
Correct me if I'm getting your ideas wrong!
Here's some further opinions on flowers and gardens. Maybe others have painted the flowering trees, but they are new to me and I would like to study them in class. The Chinese magnolia, aka tulip tree teacup mangolia, is one of my favorites. In LA they bloom in winter so they are finished now. We have one in our front driveway, and I love the shades of mauve.
YES! That's one blank filled - the magnolia is so excellent that it's worth dedicating a class to it. I forget about it and actually used to have a magnolia tree in our garden growing up, I'd climb up into it and read! It somehow seems like quite a Chinese flower so perhaps we could paint it inspired by Chinese influences (as miniature painting anyway was - although Persian miniature flowers are very flattened and Mughal ones do show more depth in the petal, but Chinese gongbi/'careful, meticulous' (basically rendering!) style of painting will show off the flower petal gradations to their fullest beauty, and you know I love gradations and rendering so much!). Thank you @Mary Yaeger for the suggestion of magnolia. From my memory it is also a spring flower as ours was in bloom in spring/early summer. Any other suggestions for the last blank space anyone?
Also - happy to take your (copyright-free) photos of flowers and turn them into paintings if that works; I'll provide other source images too and together we can choose.
I love poppies and their bursts of color. Happy to paint any flowers though
Oh brilliant! I'm smiling just looking at that photo and imagining being in the sunlight taking it. Great, we'll do poppies! You know, in England and in my mind this flower is associated with November. 11/11. Then again, it is also associated with opium and reminds me of Hong Kong and the Far East! (Also working on that opium bed with my husband - a work in progress that started before we had kids, and is still ongoing, hah!) Flowers are so symbolic, you're really getting me more and more into them @Susan Dobrian. So - I am happy to open a special November class just for the poppy if that suits, and we can keep the remaining blank space for another flower - or insert poppies into that, whatever works best.
Is that your photo of poppies?
Yes to all questions. The photo is in my garden and is now your photo in case it is helpful.
@Susan Dobrian brilliant thank you! All helps with the planning.
I'm diving into a rabbit hole of flowers and finding that I won't be able to offer all the flowers I'd like to this year! For instance this one:
is quite lovely but is a March flower or at least early spring flower as far as I know, and that's over for this year! And might feel weird to paint it 'out of season'.
So maybe some flowers can wait until next year then such as the above.
I like this one!
This is lovely! 🌷
Yes me too!
By thee way, not sure that we need to do poppies! I forgot their meaning in the UK. There are so many beautiful flowers out there, and I think you should pick the ones that would be the most interesting to paint.
We can do poppies, they have multiple meanings and I always like to look at the global perspective, so don't worry! In autumn ;-)
I created a poll for The Last Blank Summer Flower: https://pollunit.com/polls/ekoxtw1w_4xeas8ztbh8eg
It looks fantastic ! I would love to participate ! will you be announcing it soon on your website ? I love tulip too , living in the Netherlands, I am really at the summit of enchantment at the moment !
Hi Amélie, it is a paid course. Vaishali is an excellent tutor! She knows how to convey what we need to do in a very clear way, and knows how to encourage us and give us feedback to do our best work. I love her classes!