Timber Press – Books – Garden Craft

Artist Rachel Dein introduces readers to botanical bas-relief, an innovative and exciting technique developed by the author, one that anyone—gardener, parent, weekend crafter, or artist—can try at home in every season.  

Casting Flowers introduces botanical bas-relief as a rewarding method that encourages even the most basic beginners to revel in the ability to record a plant’s texture, pattern, and delicacy in fine detail, creating compositions as small as a single stem or as complex as a field of wildflowers. All it takes is clay, flower, plants, and plaster. Artists can leave a finished piece bare and elegant, or experiment with painting on its surface, bringing the plants to life in color.

From small plaster tiles featuring a single flower portrait to large panels that suggest an entire garden full of blooms, botanical castings reflect every artist’s desire to capture the ephemeral in nature. A meditative activity that encourages artists to explore their gardens and natural spaces for materials, botanical bas-relief teaches readers how to track the progress of the seasons, immortalizing the plants at the moment when they are most alive. With accessible instructions, stunning photography of the process from start to finish, and insights into the artist’s own garden, readers will discover:

·Step-by-step guidance on the tools and equipment needed to set up a simple workspace
·What plants work best in botanical casts, and which to avoid
·How to arrange flowers and stems to make well-balanced artistic compositions
·Tips on creating unique pieces of artwork as mementos of a season or records of special occasions

Discover the growing community of Black floriculture leading the new vanguard in flowers.

Black Flora is the first book to feature profiles of contemporary Black experts innovating in the world of flowers. Author and longtime gardener, Teresa Speight, offers a beautiful intersection of flowers and community. This book is a homecoming, one that unearths the floral legacies of the past and present, while providing a source of inspiration for younger generations of plant-lovers seeking examples of successful Black floral artists and entrepreneurs. 

With photos and insights from over 20 growers, florists, and designers from around the US, each with a deep reverence for nature, Black Flora showcases a range of floral expertise. And as visionary horticulturalist and garden historian, Abra Lee, reflects in her foreword, the community represented in Black Flora has an important significance both today, and in garden history. 

Both a celebration of now and a vision for the future, Black Flora honors floriculture’s creative vanguard.  

“This comprehensive work covers the gamut of techniques… will take students from beginner to expert.” —The English Garden
 
This definitive guide is the most thorough how-to available on every major technique of botanical artistry. The experts at the American Society of Botanical Artists offer step-by-step projects that move from introductory to advanced—so any level of artist can build on acquired skills. Helpful tutorials cover watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, vellum, egg tempera, oils, pen and ink, and printmaking. Filled with more than 900 photographs and stunning examples of finished art by the best contemporary botanical artists, Botanical Art Techniques is the authoritative manual on this exquisite art form.

“Art and science collide beautifully” in this step-by-step, fully illustrated guide to drawing and painting the wonderful world of insects (Lila Higgins).

• Achieve rich colors, surface textures, and spatial depth
• Measure proportions accurately
• Simplify tricky forms and patterns
• Establish an inspiring and supportive art practice