World of Arts: Botanical Arts

Botanical paintings helps to recognize species of plant. Photo by: Işık Güner 

Perhaps one of the most popular form of arts. Not as popular as portrait paintings, but plays important roles in human advancement in scientific studies and medicine. Same at any other form of arts, botanical paintings evolved from thousand years ago. Anyway, they play different roles with the advancement of technologies. Today, we have better ways to record botanical specimen, and at the same time the botanical arts helps to deliver what the modern technology cannot do.

Botanical arts or paintings were used in order to recognize types of plants that can be used for medical purposes, or plants with commercial values such as herbs and spices. When the botanical knowledge getting larger, the botanical paintings/illustration helps to segregate plants into their family and species that also helped human to develop new crops that produce more yields or immune to some diseases.

Botanical paintings make plants, recording into work of arts. Photo by: Julia Trickey

Anna Mason one of the best botanical painters. Photo by: Anna Mason

Today, botanical artist can choose to fulfil all of these purposes. They have a broad range of purposes in delivering their arts. They can do botanical illustrator with high accuracy details, in order to help botanist to recognize plant species for recording purposes. They also can do botanical art to show their subject’s aesthetic value. This type of art is the best to medium as an introduction to those who never get exposed to botanical illustration or botanical art before. The last approach that artist can do is through flower painting, without accuracy. This creative approach just as any other painting by representing plants just by artist creativity and imagination.

No matter which types of approaches that you are working on, botanical art is one of the best ways to preserve the plant specimen. Today, botanical artists can produce higher accuracy illustration and arts with the use of higher quality materials. The artist’s hard work, then share for many other viewers, through publication and exhibition. This beautiful result not only works educational medium, but also as piece of art at the same time.

Botanical paintings sometimes included insects and other animals. Photo by: Angela Leck

Another wonderful botanical painter, Heidi Willis. Photo by: Heidi Willis

There are many botanical artists out there that sharing their knowledge through free and paid courses. You don’t have to be as good as the professional botanical artist to help recording the backyard’s specimens - just follow few important keys to make sure you are doing it right.

We will see some of the botanical artists that we can learn from their YouTube channel. Other than that, we also can learn from books or DVD’s we can buy through online. Visit the exhibition is another good practice to learn from other artist works. We will improve faster when learning from those who already mastered the fields.

Hopefully botanical arts will grows among all of us in order to collect botanical data from all over the world. Because plants change so fast (produce new species), without proper record, we might lose many important plants that important to our survival. Enjoy the nature, embrace their beauty.

World of Arts: Best Artist, James Gurney

James Gurney at his studio - Photo by: jamesgurney.com

We have learned from few wonderful watercolour artists in the previous article. Here, in order to gain more knowledge, let see another wonderful painter that work on various media include watercolour. Instead of focusing on how he is doing his watercolour technique, there’re few more important things we can learn from him – the creation of the scene.

Even though more popular with his creation of dinosaur scenes, James Gurney actually can create almost any scenes through his wonderful techniques. He will do some research about the scenes he is going to create – the objects, the lights, shadows, and the atmospheres through different approaches. From that he is able to produce a realistic picture (for any scene he wants).

With Jack Horner at the Museum of the Rockies. Photo by Tobey Sanford.

Researching at the Grand Canyon. Photo by: Tobey Sanford.

His drawings allow us to see sceneries of the lost world such as dinosaur’s land and ancient civilization; with the information provided by other researchers of palaeontologists and archaeologies. His work can be seen mostly through Scientific American and National Geographic Magazine. He also produced Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, which was published in 1992; showing more illustration of dinosaurs that living among human.

The best thing is; he is sharing his knowledge through many platforms; that is also become our great opportunity to learn many things from this wonderful artist. For fast learning of his ideas on how he built the sceneries for his paintings, you can follow his YouTube channel here. There are also a few books by him containing important information on how to produce realistic drawing. These include, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist, Andrews McMeel, 2009 and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, Andrews McMeel, 2010.

Study of reflection. Photo by: theminiaturespage.com

Book; Color and Light by James Gurney.

Learn behind the scenes process on how he produced his illustrations from several sketches, built the maquettes, create the composition and finalize the drawings. That’s totally different from what we thought, that the painting process just a process of sketch and paint.

If you want to learn more about his techniques, there are also video guides available you can buy in the form of DVD and digital download. From these videos you can learn step by steps to do the drawings. He always shares many other knowledge during the painting process that make the videos more entertaining.

Image from Dinotopia, Desert Crossing. Photo by: James Gurney

Image from Dinotopia, Market Square. Photo by: James Gurney

To learn more about this wonderful painter, you can visit his website that will lead you many other resources produces by him. He also writes his daily blog that sharing more wonderful things about drawing and painting.

After going through many videos of drawings and paintings, I think James Gurney is one of the best painters that we need to learn from. His techniques will allow us to create our own technique base on the sceneries we want to create – that’s why I come out with this article first. There are many other good videos that we can learn out there that I will share in the next articles.

World of Arts: Types of Watercolour

Full set of professional watercolour. Photo by: jacksonsart.com 

This time we talk about another important subject in watercolour paintings, since watercolour is one of the popular mediums compared to any other materials we used in paintings. Anyway, there are many types of watercolour, and we might want to know what are their differences and which one to use.

They are cheaper types of watercolours and there is also an artist grade that can cost more expensive. What are their differences? Watercolour is made cheaper for the student grade so it will be more affordable for students to learn. This is possible by changing its ratios of their main ingredients that consist of pigment, gum Arabic, additives and solvent. So, the student grade is totally for practicing only, when we want to be a professional painter, we need to use the artist grade watercolour for a few reasons.

Student grade allow student to practice and don't have to spend more on paints: Photo by: craftnikim.com

Lightfast test result, showing the colours faded when exposed to light. Photo by: janeblundellart.blogspot.com

Besides their qualities, artist grade watercolour not only have a brighter coloured pigments, but they also blended carefully to have a good texture. Professional artist has different preferences for the texture quality, anyway, this high grade watercolour has far better texture (evenly) than student grade watercolour. Other than easy to apply, watercolour must have the transparent quality as one of the main characters for watercolour that differentiate between watercolours than any other painting techniques.

The artist grade watercolour is more lightfast; the quality of the pigment not prone to discolour when exposed to light. This is very important to make sure the painting can be kept for a longer period of time (and increase their value). The lightfast value, usually provided by the watercolour manufacturer in their product’s specification (or you need to contact them to know about the details).

Types of watercolour

Tube watercolour maintain its colour quality. Photo by: artsupplies.co.uk 

Winsor & Newton professional set of 24, comes in pan. Photo by: cassart.co.uk 

Liquid watercolour has a vibrant colour hues. Photo by: cowlingandwilcox.com  

Then they are a few different types of watercolour (basically on their packaging). Some of them are coming in tubes while some of them come in pan. Both of them have good quality of pigments, but it’s totally depend on how you use your colours. If you don’t want your colours mixed with each other, then a tube is easier to handle. Anyway, for travelling purposes, pan is always easier.

The new types of watercolour also known as liquid watercolour is ready to use types. Mostly they have a brighter colour, but can also be diluted to produce paler hues. This watercolour is suitable for traditional brush or an airbrush technique. Usually it will be used together with traditional watercolour as a mixed media (to give contrast in the painting).

Watercolour Sets

Watercolours are sold in sets of 6 colours up to 36 colours, you might want to know which set to choose. Since colours are produced from three primary colours (Red, Yellow and Blue). You just need to make sure, you have this three main colours first. Then you also might need to have white and black because they cannot be produced by those three colours. Having a bigger set of colours will speed up your painting process, and also producing consistent quality of the colour.

It is important to know more about the materials that you use for your paintings. Especially when you think about to sell it to your customers. Good paintings should have durability for storage (this will increase their value), and might be useful as future reference. It’s Okay to have different quality of paints for practicing purposes and for the real paintings.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The lobby of V&A museum.

As usual, we are going to continue with the next place I visited in London, that is Victoria and Albert Museum or much popular with V&A. Victoria and Albert Museum is a museum dedicated to decorative art and now become the world’s largest museum by housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects. My visit to V&A just after short visited to the Natural History Museum for the first time. So the visit to this museum is around 4 hours (of course it’s not enough).

The history of this museum was closely related to the Science Museum as they share the same buildings in their early establishment in 1852. As the collection of arts getting larger and larger the Science Museum needs to separate itself to another location and ended up where it is now.

V&A is a very important museum of arts, even though there are many other art museums and galleries all across London and all around Europe. From its early stage, V&A actively collecting art from other countries includes Europe, North America, Asia, and North Africa. At some points, V&A still have their samples preserved in good condition compared to their original pieces.

Some of the laquerware from all around the world.

Here in V&A, they collected all types of arts from sculptures, paintings, ceramics, glass, textiles, woods, silvers, jewellery, ironwork, prints, photographs, furniture, and many others (yes, all types of arts). That’s what makes V&A one of important museum here in London. It’s opened up your eyes to the whole world of arts, and why it is so important to the development of human cultures.

As usual, you can join in any of their free museum tours conducted by knowledgeable friendly staffs or volunteers. This will speed up your learning process about the topics that they will share. As this museum is so big, you might, unsure where you should start and where it should end, unless you planned it in advanced.

With a total size of 12.5 acres (5.1 ha), V&A consist of 145 galleries - make sure you check the floor plan carefully, if you are looking for something specifics. Here, there are many things to see and learn about. Instead of just looking at the art pieces, here in V&A there always many things to do. Other than special exhibition, there are also courses, family events, workshops, talks and resources for you to learn more about the arts (library of books and items). The whole museum itself is result of beautiful architecture with lots of art on it.

Museum tour with Jeremy Strachan, educative and entertaining.

Important piece from Shah Jahan dynasty, India.

As usual, you are encouraged to visit their website to know more about V&A before you visit it. This will allow you to maximize your experience during your visit. You also can communicate with them if you have any question - so, they will be able to assist you (in case you require something not available on the exhibition).

At the end of the visit, what I can say is - I need to come back to V&A to see more of the things that I missed on my first visit. I also included another photo album of this museum on my fanpage, you can visit it through the link. Wish I have more time on my next visit to V&A.

Kindly share if you have anything to share about this museum in the comments section below, or send it to my email (check the contact form on the web view).

Coloured tiles from Islamic cultures.

Miniature pieces.

One of many sculptures.

11-metre high, blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly.

Dive Into The World of Arts

Art produced by Google’s Deep Dream Artificial Intelligent - Google Deep Dream

There are huge definitions of art and whether we understand the meaning of art or not, we might contributed or came crossed it without even realize it. Before we go through some definition of arts one thing we can be sure, art is important in our lives.

These are few definitions of the arts from various sources;

Google Dictionary:

• the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
• the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.
• subjects of study primarily concerned with human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects).
• a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

Wikipedia:

•  Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artefacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

Drawing of ancient woodworking from Egyptian painting. - Photo by: The Yorck Project

Well, we know that’s not enough to explain about the arts. So we can see few other references, perhaps from Huffingtonpost, or something deeper from Mentalfloss, and don’t forget to check on details discussion “What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?” from Philosophynow. So arts can be in many forms from the way we talk, to the way we walks (it’s everything) and we are all doing it with the different impacts to our surrounding.

Here's what we are going to share few forms of the arts that we knew well. Perhaps we can learn more about it in details. We also will share few people that good at it, and few sources that we can learn more about it. So, we can choose which form of arts that we like and go through it more deeply. These resources will be added from time to time (just follow the link provided).

Drawings:

The starry night by Vincent van Gogh vallued at more than hundrend millions - Photo by: wikimedia

Drawings are the most basic form of arts. Even though some other arts don't require drawings, many others rely on drawings as their basic such as pottery, woodworks, ironworks, glassworks, architectures, and many others. Whether there’s a physical drawing or not, those arts need to start with some drawings.

So let see drawings in general through their media;

Drawings; pencil drawing, charcoal, ink or monotones.

Coloured drawings/paintings:

• Colourpencil
• Crayon
• Pastels
• Chalk
• Watercolours
• Acrylics
• Oil paintings
• Airbrush.
• Pen - ballpoint pen, technical pen, fountain pen, nib pen, marker

* Other forms of drawings such as graffiti, mural, comic or manga can be related back to the panting media above.

Crafts:

Craft is another broad form of arts that can be categories into few different classes. Here we will list few of it and will try to add more as much as we can. Usually craft also will be linked together with drawing skills.

Textiles:

Even though the process of producing the textiles itself is an art, but the arts that related to textiles are developed tremendously. The arts of textiles including producing products from the textiles and also the patterns using the same materials or additional materials as additional.

•  Applique
•  Beadwork
•  Crochet
•  Dyeing
•  Embroidery
•  Knitting
•  Lace
•  Patchwork
•  Passementerie
•  Quilting
•  Rug & carpet making
•  Textile printing

Pottery:

For pottery it is easier to classify the arty types using the materials that use (as the arts mostly known by their materials).

• Earthenware
• Terracotta
• Stoneware
• Porcelain
• Fritware
• Egyptian faience
• Ironstone
• Jasperware

Wood working:

Chinese wood carving at Green Lake Hotel, Kunming. Photo by: thisiscolossal.com

It’s hard to classify the woodworks as I am not so sure all of them. So if there’s any opinion to add on this topic, please don’t hesitate to add it in the comment or send me an email. Here I will list some of them base on how the woodworks process;

•           Wood carving
•       Parquetry
•       Japanese carpentry
•       Spindle turning
•       Pyrography
•       Clogs
•       Lacquerware
•       Craft with plant materials - coconut shell, bamboo, rattan, and etc.

Glass:

Glassart in Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan – Photo by: wikipedia

Same goes for the glass, the process has also become the classification of the glassworks. One process might have different distinctive results. Usually craftsman will only mastering one type of glasswork - because it requires different type of tools.

-        

•       Glassblowing
•          Stained glass
•          Glass sculptures
•          Etched glass
•          Cold glass
•           Enamelled glass
•           Glass mosaic

Metal:

There are different types of classification of metalwork, it’s either by the types of metal that their use or the product that they produce. Sometimes we also known them with the process. But here let us list some of it to see the different;

-        

•       Goldsmith
•          Silversmith
•          Sculptures
•          Masks
•          Metal plates
•          Ornaments
•          Furniture
•          Jewelleries
•          Musical instruments

* Goldsmith and silversmith can also producing jewelleries, but they are specified to each metal if they only work with one metal only.

Creative Arts:

Writings:

Popular novels - kosmosaicbooks.com 

Writing is also another important types of art. From the basic form of writing it’s allow us to record some important information in the history. Today we have different types of writing for different purposes even for different languages.

•          Journals
•          Diaries
•          Essays
•         Storytelling
•          Poetry
•          Memoir
•          Scripts
•          Blogging
•          Free writing

Performances:

Photo of book cover: Michael Jackson: The King of Pop by Chris Roberts

Acting, singing, theatre performances, magician, stand-up comedy, dancing and live performances (acrobatics, mix of performances).

Cooking:

Japanese foods presented with beautiful decoration. - Photo by: savvytokyo.com

Cooking is another huge topic to talk about, but still so important in our history. Every dishes need to prepare accordingly or it cannot be eaten. We might add extra decoration – that will be different part of art. We will try to list some of it, but then we only get clearer picture when we go through it one by one.

By process;

•          Roasting
•          Grilling
•          Blanching or boiling
•          Sous-vide
•         Steaming
•         Baking
•         Stir-frying
•         Fermenting
•         Salads

* There are many other types of cooking arts that we need to discuss it in more specific articles, especially when we talk about specific dishes such as specific dishes related to some part of culture, e.g.: sushi, kimchee, tom yam, rendang and etc.

As you can see, there are too many form of arts and I cannot list of all it here. So I will come back to add more of it in this list. From here we can see more articles to help us to develop the skills or to learn more from those who are good at it, or maybe we just want to get more information about it. Hope this will help for us to enrich our knowledge.