3rd BOTANICAL PAINTING WORKSHOP AT SPAROZA GARDEN

On Saturday 9th March 2024, we hosted at Sparoza Estate the third of our Botanical Painting workshops with the artist Matina Galati. The workshops have been enormous fun and very popular since we started them last Spring.

The purpose of the workshops is to encourage visitors to immerse themselves in the garden over the course of a morning, spending time observing the plants really closely and creating beautiful botanical paintings en plein air that they can be proud of.

Matina Galati has developed a beautiful style of botanical illustration that is very accessible and her teaching enables even beginners to produce excellent paintings.

The workshop always begins with a short bit of colour theory, which helps the participants to think about how they use and mix colours to create contrast, light and shadows. We also looked at how a range of artists have treated botanical subjects, ranging from the realism of the 18th century through to Mary Delaney’s paper cut outs to the graphic lines of Ellsworth Kelly.

The class then went to see how Matina paints her plants in the garden, demonstrating how to capture the details and light. The subject we chose for this workshop was Iris unguicularis as they were looking particularly stunning all over the garden and it enabled the group to work in the same space rather than being spread out all over the estate. The quality of the work achieved was really impressive and simultaneously similar and completely individual. Everyone had a lovely morning and left with a sense of achievement and of having made lots of new friends.