Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share my experience with taking a botanical art class!

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My local library was hosting a botanical art class so I signed up and was so excited! I had no idea what to expect, to be honest, but I had a great time.

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Taking a Botanical Art Class

The class was taught by a local artist, Kathleen Marie Garness. The artist shared that she has work at the Smithsonian, so that was cool! She also had brought us materials that we were able to keep, including a folder with some worksheets, a sketch paper pad, and coloring utensils.

We started with the worksheets, which was meant to help us understand how to layer the colored pencils in our supplies. We were given Prismacolor colored pencils. In case you’re curious, we got the following colors: lemon yellow, charteuse, true blue, indigo blue, violet, tuscan red, process red (true magenta), yellowed orange, greyed lavender, grey green light, white, 10% cool grey, 30% warm grey, and black. It was so cool to see how the colors worked together and changed as we went on. We also were given a colorless pencil that is meant to help with blending.

Next, we were given a peach and a calla lily flower to draw. It was tough! Picking out the colors and trying to make it all look good was so fun and it really was a challenge to get it right! Here’s my end result:

Tada! I don’t think it’s too bad! Well, the peach I don’t think quite looks like a peach. Like, if I hadn’t told you it was a peach, would you have known? Maybe not! But I do think the flower came out pretty good, and I even got some depth in there which I can never seem to do. Honestly, I think the craziest thing to come out of the class is that I actually showed off what I drew! I’ve always been so self conscious at how bad my drawn art is, but I wasn’t too upset by these two, so I did feel okay sharing them! How wild! Everyone’s art in the class was honestly beautiful and it was crazy how much fun we had.

I will say, the instructor didn’t really give any input at all, not even a color suggestion, so she really let us get wild with it. At first I was kind of surprised, as I expected more of a instructor-led class where she would color something and then we’d try to copy or something, but I think we learned a ton this way and got the confidence to maybe try again on our own later now that we have the supplies. Speaking of supplies, I nearly busted out laughing in the class when the instructor handed me the bag and said I could keep the items. I’d just donated/gifted the colored pencils I owned! Somehow, every time I get rid of art supplies they find a way to get back to me. I feel like the universe might be telling me something!

Anyway, will I attempt to draw something else? Maybe! I think I would really like to. I might even share it if I do! But even if I don’t, I did really enjoy the class and had such a great time!

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So that was my experience taking a botanical art class. I do love taking art classes in general, so maybe I should look into more. I loved it!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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