Doing new things can be hard. Over the last few years I have been working on learning to draw and watercolor paint. I jumped into this watercolor painting not in the easy wild colors sliding all over the page but in learning the skills of botanical painting. This is an exacting skill where you want your painting to truly represent the plant. You need to make the leaves the right color, the veining to match as close as possible. Flowers, roots, seeds all need to tell the true story of the plant you are painting.
You learn about the habitat of the plant and maybe even a bit of its history. The style of painting has a long history. It was used long ago before photography to record plants found around the world. Explorers took botanical artists along to record what they saw and found. At times plant samples would be gathered and brought home to be grown in greenhouses or fancy gardens. The pride and joy of high society gardeners long ago.
Today this style of painting is use to record the plants growing in an arboretum or to record the plants of someones garden. This is called a Florilegium. In Minneapolis, Mn there is a group of botanical artists that have been developing a Florilegium of the Eloise Butler Wildflower garden. They have been working on it for many years. Collecting painting of the plants in the garden.
All that is to say this is not an easy style to do and learn but for me it is great fun but also frustrating. I am new to drawing and painting so to speak. It is a retirement skill.
So I find there are days when I just want to quit. I compare myself to those that have been working on this for years and feel I don’t have enough years left in my life to get near to their skill.
Then I realize who am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? Do I need to reach that skill level?
Nope and I am doing this to learn a new skill, to have fun and to find new ways to connect to plants.
Breathe and relax – All this leads to my little notebook that I bought a couple years ago. It has watercolor paper in it. I started practicing painting and got upset when things didn’t not look the way I wanted. (Can you tell I am hard on myself!?)
I decided one day to divide each page into squares – one for each day of the week. I dated them. Now I try each day to paint or draw something in each square. It does not matter what it is. It can connect to the day or not. It can be a design, pen drawing, a painted image or words. The idea is to have pen or brush in hand and just have fun. It is not to take longer than a few minutes. Nothing to worry about.
I have started and stopped this little book a few times but now as I am taking more classes in botanical work I am finding it a fun warm up. On days life gets busy it is a way to be sure I have a small drawing done daily. The pen or brush in hand just to get the feel of it.
It seems to take the fear away of sitting down to a whole painting. It is simple and nothing can be wrong.
The idea came from someone on Instagram who was making a dot a day and exploring color, I think. (sorry whoever you are – that I cannot name you here) I may have written about this a few years ago when I started it and then stop. A bad habit of mine – the starting and stopping of projects.
I realize it is best to just make the new things you are learning simple. Small steps instead of trying to become perfect right at the start. Beginners mind! Why I need to remind myself of that I do not know!
I think I need to post it next to my desk in the office that is full of pens, paints, plants, garden books and writing journals.
Words from JL 
“It seems to take the fear away of sitting down to a whole painting.” I relate. I got excited about “grid journaling” for the same reason. You describe a process that reminds me of Joan Bolker’s writing for 15 minutes a day. Or Annie Lamott’s “Index Cards” approach to writing. Or small frames. Anything to lower the stakes or the hurdle. A small square seems so do-able but pays BIG dividends because you’re practicing looking, and holding the brush, and working with watercolors, and developing a discipline, and creating an opus (over time). Thanks for this Saturday morning writing. Inspiring!
Joanne, this is beyond fabulous! Absolutely inspirational. Thanks for the marvelous new word: Florilegium. Imagine botanical drawings of one’s own yard! Yes, this is no idle pastime you have undertaken – it is really cool.
I love the daily entry notebook with the paintings and the jotted notes. That’s a great idea. I’m looking for projects like that for when I fully retire. How do you find classes in botanical painting? Community college? Online? And wait, that last image is a photo, right?
Yes the last image is a photo, the radish is a painting from my last class. There are classes on line – in the state and artists in the UK. I have done both. We are lucky to have a small Botanical art school here in town so I have taken in person classes there. They are closing at the end of this year. The owner is retiring to do her own painting. There is also a group on instagram on Monday mornings - Using pen and doing Nature Journaling – lots of people doing that. You might find that fun.