Thursday

Fearless Drawing in French, German, Korean, Russian and Spanish!






Hello! here's the new foreign language editions of my book 'Fearless Drawing' now available in French, German, Korean, Russian and Spanish. It's so exciting to see them, and really interesting to note how the cover has been adapted for the different markets. I'm so proud of this book, and amazed at the idea of it now being accessible to people speaking all these different languages!

I'm having a fantastic week, Saturday I went to see Tree at The Old Vic (highly recommend, and I LOVED the giant tree in the set), on Sunday I went to see 'Connect & Grow' at The Garden Museum which explored the link between choreography and horticulture. On Monday I had the most interesting and inspiring lectures and lab practicals as Artist in Residence at Royal Holloway University in the Plant Molecular Science dept more info here. Tues saw me in the studio working on lots of exciting new projects (can't share any yet but will as soon as I can). Yesterday I went to glorious Chelsea Physic Garden to speak to the team about my residency, they were fantastic and I look forward to collaborating with them more. 

Today I'm off again to the Eton Natural History Museum to study their glorious Banks' Florilegium. It's a collection of copperplate engravings of plants collected by Sir Joseph Banks while he accompanied Captain James Cook on HM Bark Endeavour between 1768 and 1771. Sydney Parkinson drew each specimen aboard the ship and made notes on their colour. Between 1771 and 1784 Banks hired 18 engravers to create the copperplate line engravings, but the first complete full-colour edition of the Florilegium was not published until 1980 and only 100 sets were made available for sale. The plates were printed using a 17th-century technique known as à la poupée where each colour was applied directly to the plate and each plate took from one week to two months to proof. I am so lucky to have the opportunity to study them up close, and I'm off to get the train now!

Have a wonderful weekend whatever you get up to, mine will be drawing and reading through some of my giant biology textbooks - I have so much to learn! x

1 comment:

Jennifer Tetlow said...

Rather jealous of your trip to see the plates - I'm sure they'll be very inspiring and look forward to hearing all about it after your visit.