I’ve missed you all, waiting patiently through many art exhibit postponements. My redwood painting did get juried into the 150 year Anniversary Celebration of Golden Gate Park but, of course, postponed. Ditto for the Garden Club of America’s Flower Show, the Children’s Support League House Tour, Bouquets des Arts, and several others.
The good news is four Piedmont artists stepped up to the creativity plate to organize the 1st Piedmont Art Walk. It’s a social distanced, masked, no touch art show in our front yards, to benefit art in schools, because those fundraisers have been cancelled. This is our way to help. We have an interactive map to scan on red posters throughout town. Please stop by my porch for a look. I’ve been framing my small Botanical prints in collectible frames these last months and I will be selling them along with several Bug Hotels—hanging garden art where pollinators feed, rest and shelter-in-place! Larger prints and framed art can be brought outside upon request.
You can otherwise purchase my signed Botanical Art cards at Rocky’s Market in Leimert, with donations going to the Food Bank for each card sold.
Holiday Party and Art Open House Sunday, Dec. 22 4 – 7 PM Piedmont, California
Hello
Art Patrons,
I’ve finally hung most of my botanicals throughout the house and I’d like you to see them. I’m having an art Open House and Holiday Party next Sunday from 4-7 pm. Besides the art, there will be Grandma’s fudge and homemade cookies. There will certainly be cocktails, beer and wine for the holiday weary. My studio table will be full of botanical gifts: aprons, wrapping paper, playing cards, note cards–our newest group project is a floral tote bag on black background. Stunning! I have a half-dozen Bug Hotels looking for a home plus framed or unframed prints for those who like to frame their own. Please join me and bring your friends and relatives.
Many of you ask about the evolution of a painting. It’s always in flux. My Coastal Redwood project has been evolving since June when my friend gave me a Turkey Tail Mushroom embedded with redwood twigs from her garden in Ben Lomand. I drew the mushroom on tracing paper, then began the watercolor on paper of a redwood branch with small green pinecones because the background was to be red bark. One pinecone from a neighboring tree was not a Coast Redwood after-all, rather a deciduous Dawn Redwood. I had to scrub that perfect green cone from the paper and paint a botanically correct Coast Redwood cone over it. At that point, I decided against using a bark background after discovering a ‘tree ring ink print’ video on YouTube. Smitten, I bought a few redwood trunk slices from a firewood source and borrowed a sander and blowtorch from the Tool Library. My teacher and classmates stopped me after sanding but before a blowtorch fiasco (meant to burn the softwood and raise the rings). They convinced me to try colored pencil and make a rubbing instead, painting around the redwood branch. I had to trace all the rings three times, and my tree was 52 rings old—but who’s counting? It turns out a colored pencil is fun and quite versatile. Then I decided to transfer the mushroom only using shades of graphite. New to me as well, graphite was the most fun of all. So this piece has overlapping watercolor, colored pencil and graphite as its medium. To see the final work you’ll have to come to my Open House next Sunday because it’s currently getting scanned by my fine art printer. I hope it will also be juried into the Golden Gate Park 150 Year Celebration exhibit in Spring, and the Mt.Tamalpias Florilegium project in Fall. Meanwhile, the work will be shown at Berkeley Botanical Garden’s Rare and Endangered exhibit Jan 17- Feb 5.
11th Annual Plants Illustrated “Rare and Endangered Plants of the World” Berkeley Botanical Gardens 200 Centennial Dr. Berkeley, CA www.botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu Jan 17- Feb 5 2019 (closed Jan 20-21, Feb 4) Artists’ Reception Jan 18, 4-6 pm (RSVP for Free Garden Entry)
Garden Club of America Flower Show Claremont Country Club on April 15-17. Piedmont Garden Club is hosting this 201 club national event and I’ve been asked to share my Bug Hotels and Botanical Art. It is free and open to the public.
Be sure to visit Rocky’s Market in Leimert off Park Blvd in Oakland to see my botanicals hung on the wall and pick up last-minute note cards. And I still plan to blowtorch that redwood slice and make ink prints. I’ll let you know.
You’re
correct. I did not get around to writing last quarter’s newsletter. I had
minimal news. I worked on my bamboo painting, skied and recharged. Loafing, my
Dad used to call it.
Lucky for me, talented artist/writer Katie Korotzer filled the void. In my studio, she interviewed and photographed me for the webzine, Piedmont Exedra, then proceeded to create an extensive eloquent four-page, ten photo Artist’s Profile within a week. She writes that my Pinecone “bristles with energy.” Nice. She includes a sneak preview photo of my Golden Bamboo painting still taped to the easel board. “Look closely to see a bit of fauna on the flora” the caption reads. LMK if you can’t find it. Click Reader View for full-page images.
Piedmont Harvest Festival 711 Highland Ave. Piedmont CA. Sept. 22 11-3 pm Piedmont Park
Come see my Golden Bamboo painting in the Tea House in Piedmont Park from 11-3 pm. Snack at a food truck, sample hometown garden edibles and baked goods, shop the farmer’s market and take a chance on the cake walk. Get face painted! This leaves us an hour to hop over the San Rafael Bridge to the Marin Art and Garden Center by 4-6 pm for my other Artists’ Reception the same day. It’s an art extravaganza! ASBA is celebrating our 25th Silver Anniversary with a catalogue of current members’ art, Celebrating Silver, depicting silver in the image or plant name. My piece will be a detail of the larger Silver Birch painting. Our Northern CA. branch will exhibit our ‘Silver’ catalogue artwork:
Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. Ross, CA. Artist’s’ Reception: Sept 22, 4-6 pm Exhibition: Sept 23–Nov 16, Monday-Sat 9-5pm www.magc.org
As a bonus, the 22nd Annual ASBA International BotanicalExhibition will run daily alongside our chapter show at MAGC. This will be its first year on the West coast. The show contains some of the best modern botanical art created worldwide. I didn’t enter because, well, it’s next-to-impossible to get in and artists are required to show an original and then to sell it . . . which I’m not quite ready to do. This Botanical Art will be the best of the best. Don’t miss it!
Sunday, December 8th from 2pm – 5pm is the annual Botanical Holiday Art Exhibition. You’ll have another newsletter before then. If you missed the Harvest Festival, you can see my Golden Bamboo painting during the holidays at Woodhall in Orinda and find the fauna on the flora in person.
I
hope to be back at the Berkeley Botanical Garden for a Rare
and Endangered Species Exhibition Jan 17-Feb 5 but have not yet
painted anything rare or endangered. Ideas?
2020
will bring the Garden Club of America Flower Show to
California at Claremont Country Club on April 15-17. Piedmont
Garden Club is hosting this 201 club national event and I’ve been asked to
share my Bug Hotels and Botanical Art. It is free and open to the public.
Details later.
I’ve
also had big fun with little kids. In oversized aprons and tiny chairs,
elementary school children and I splattered and glazed ourselves and dozens of
kid-sculpted, kiln fired ceramic flowers for Piedmont’s Big Art Show benefiting
art in Piedmont schools. These bright colorful sprouts of flower power on metal
stakes immediately sold out at $15-20 apiece. They are blooming in gardens
throughout town. My Acorn Giclee print made one buyer happy as well.
Next
year I will notify you in advance of the ASBA Online Art Auction. I
am happy to report that someone got a good deal for a great cause on my
unframed Aspen and Nasturtium prints.
Do
you know: When planting, to determine what areas of your garden will be in
shade this winter, step out late at night during a summer full moon. Those
garden shadows you see will mimic your daytime shadows in winter. As opposed to
sun shadows, moon shadows are long in summer, short in winter. Plant by the
light of the moon?
Finally,
I’d like to welcome a whole new passel of art patrons who’d signed up for my
newsletter in the past. I just found the list with your names! As always please
unsubscribe at will.
My fellow botanical artists and I will be holding our annual Holiday Party this Sunday, Dec 2 from 4pm – 7 pm at Woodhall in Orinda. Come to see our latest watercolor creations, sip wine and enjoy hors d’oeuvres crafted by our members. We have a sale table of botanical prints, cards, scarves, aprons, placemats etc. New this year are multi-purpose floral botanical clutch pouch’s— sized for tablets and priced for gift giving. These will sell out. I’ll display my life-sized Aspen painting and my almost finished Magnolia grandiflora. Please come and have a look!
BOTANICAL ART EXHIBITION
at Woodhall in Orinda CA 501 Orindawoods Drive and Kite Hill Road
Sunday, December 2, 2018 4pm – 7pm
In mid-January, I will take part in an art exhibit at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. The theme is ethnobotany, which is the study of traditional uses for plants throughout a region or culture. Quaking Aspen was used by native Americans as tent poles and drying racks. Aspen wood is now used for manufacturing wooden matchsticks. The straight grained wood is covered in fire retardant and the tip is dipped in paraffin. Two chemical layers are added to the tip and dried—portable fire. The annual exhibit will be held in the 1911 craftsman bungalow, Julia Morgan Hall, in the Botanical Gardens. I don’t have my gallery sitting date yet, so check with me later if you want to catch me there. Otherwise, I’ll be at the reception Jan 19, 2019.
Berkeley Botanical Gardens 200 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, CA
January 18 – February 6, 2019 (closed Jan 21 and Feb. 5)
Artists’ Reception January 19, 5-7 pm.
(If attending the Artists’ Reception, please RSVP to me so I may place you on the free garden entry list.)
If you’d like to browse through my botanical prints, cards, aprons, placemats, gift wrap, succulent wreaths, bags, and pouches for sale, I will have my Piedmont studio table brimming with them during the holidays. Nearly all of my paintings are on my studio walls and most prints are framed and matted, or sold unframed for half the price. Just give me a call (510) 604-6141 to set a time and date. Come eat Christmas cookies, sip coffee and wine! Let’s have a party—you bring the guests! Or come solo… I’d like you to see my artwork.
Happy Autumn. My life-sized Quaking Aspen painting is finished and you can view it this Sunday at the Piedmont Harvest Festival. It’s a hometown festival in the park featuring garden edibles grown locally. You can taste jams, salsas, spreads, breads and cookies. There’s a jazz fest, farmer’s market, carnival, food trucks and a silent scarecrow auction. A renovated Japanese Tea House holds the art exhibit where my Aspen will hang. If you can’t find me there I might be on, my favorite, the cake walk. The Festival is free and the parking is easy. You can even walk the few blocks from my house.
PIEDMONT HARVEST FESTIVAL
Sunday, September 30, 2018, 11-3 pm
Piedmont Community Hall
711 Highland Ave,
Piedmont, CA
Not much news this time. Our touring Alcatraz Florilegium was on exhibit at the Marin Headlands Visitor Center in the historic Fort Barry Chapel over the summer. Sorry for no advance notice but you can always check my website for upcoming exhibits. www.BonniesBotanicalArt.com.
I’m hard at work on a Magnolia grandiflora. A magnificent name for a huge magnolia blossom surrounded by large reflective (tricky to paint) leaves. It might be complete by the holidays, but I’m taking a creative detour for a few weeks to paint in Maui. My kindergarten girlfriend (who’s the real artist) and I will paint tropicals at her dad’s place in Napili Kai.
Meanwhile, this Fall, try to head to the Sierras and see the golden Quaking Aspen shimmer and light up the hills. I recommend Sorensen’s Resort for a rustic cabin in the Aspen woods with a wood-fired sauna and one fantastic restaurant. www.sorensensresort.com. And it’s in spectacular Hope Valley. We can all use a bit of that.
Marin Art and Garden Center: Celebrating Trees Ross, CA / May 20 – June 24, 2018 – Thursday-Sunday 10-4pm
Marin Art and Garden Center
30 Sr. Francis Drake Blvd
Ross, CA
Artists reception May 20, 3-5pm www.magc.org
Here’s what’s happening in long form. I’ve been juried into the venerable Filoli Garden Botanical Exhibition for the fourth time. They chose my nasturtium painting from the Alcatraz Florilegium Collection. The exhibit, A Palette of Flowers, celebrates an abundance of spring flowers and runs until May 20. The historic Gardens, with their own colorful flora, provide a spring recharge and the cafe provides my favorite dessert…
Petit Fours!
On April 21, I’ll be showing my Bug Hotels, pollinator-friendly garden art, at a private garden in San Pablo. Completed this year is the Bento Box Collection—see my website. All of you art patrons are invited to a pre-Garden Tour event. The focus is native plant gardens, and I’ll also bring a few watercolor prints and cards. The official tour, Bringing Back the Natives: Art and Music in the Garden will be held on May 6, and I will be showingmy work at a garden on the tour in Orinda. These tours are free, but you must register online.
Finally, The Marin Art and Garden Center has asked ASBA members to show their work in the May-June exhibition, Celebrating Trees. Hopefully, my three-foot-tall watercolor of a life-size section of Aspen tree will be ready, but I hope to bring the Three Birches and Jeffrey pinecone if space allows. An artists’ reception is May 20, 3-5pm and the show runs May 20 – June 24, Thursday – Sunday 10-4pm. This Center is home to a peaceful walkable garden with a large bright gallery space.
My aspen painting grows with a mind of her own. Enchanting, but nothing like I expected. I expected blinding autumn brilliance. Instead, I unearth an elegant deciduous sapling on paper, it’s one-hundred golden leaves ‘undressing for winter‘, as my friend and poet, Joe Lamb, writes. Scientifically named, Populous tremuloids, the quaking aspen has a flattened leaf stalk that trembles and quakes in the slightest breeze. Aspens grow in colonies which explains why their leaves turn color in individual stands. That’s why you see a grove of gold aspen trees against a mountainside of still green aspens, or one golden grove against a mountain of slender bare aspen trunks, already undressed for winter. Each stand is propagated by a shared root system coming from the sprout of one seedling. Clonal aspen groves are one of the largest living organisms. One male colony in Utah covers 107 acres and includes 47,000 trees. It is estimated to be 80,000 years old. So are you intrigued as to how the art turns out? Cross your fingers since I’ve already dropped it once, but I should finish soon. Come see it! I can’t wait to find out myself.
Please come celebrate the Holiday Season at our 2017 Botanical Art Exhibition at Woodhall, 501 Orindawoods Drive, Orinda CA. on Dec 3rd from 4-7 pm. We’llhave original botanical art and gifts on display along with homemade hors d’oeuvres and drinks for all—a gift from my botanical art class to our friends and family. I will exhibit my Kaffir lime (see invitation below), strawberry tree, opium poppy and the BIG ART Aspen tree in progress.
The Alcatraz Florilegium has been on exhibit on Alcatraz Island daily since September 16 and will close January 17, 2018. The 127 pieces of art in the collection are rumored to travel next year, so during the holidays treat your family to a ferryboat ride across the bay to see it. We often have beautiful sunny days in winter. www.Ncalsba.org/Alcatraz
Alternatively, Alcatraz Florilegium Catalogues contain Island history and fine botanical artwork depicting the Island’s flora. The book makes an original gift for your garden or art lover. I’ve decided against having my holiday art open house this December due to low turnout (11 last year, if you count the infant) but in December I always load up my studio table with botanical aprons, placemats, cards, wrapping paper, Alcatraz Catalogues, prints and (new this year) packs of 52 different botanical playing cards. If anyone would like to stop and shop just reply. Bring friends; I have the cookies.
Finally, NorCal Botanical Artists will open an exhibition at the Berkeley Botanical Gardens on Jan 9th-25th. The 1911 redwood Julia Morgan Hall will house over 75 works of botanical art “Celebrating Trees.” Since traditional botanical art is lifesize, you will see everything from large tree sections, to saplings and seedpods. Since my Jeffrey Pinecone has already been on exhibit at that venue, I will show my Incense Cedar with lichen. Have you seen it? You can preview it on my website gallery. I’ll let you know which day I will gallery sit or just come on a rainy day and cozy up to the craftsmen open fireplace. www.botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu
Hope you enjoyed a bountiful Thanksgiving repast. Did you know that during Pilgrim times, prisoners were served succulent Eastern lobsters every day until they rioted in protest? “We want something else!”
In June, I received an email from the editor of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine asking if I’d like to be featured, along with some other botanical artists, in their July/Aug issue. I’ve no idea how they found me, but after my teacher assured me it was not a hoax I sent them a few choices. Guess which painting they chose? Yep, Pinus, jeffreyi. That pinecone gets around. The article identified the artists as “some of the brightest botanical talents working today.” Ha! Little do they know I’m just a kid in my family room replicating nature’s beauty on paper.
The American Society of Botanical Artists’ annual conference is in town Oct 12-14 and our chapter is hosting. The San Mateo Marriott will display our small botanical works that measure 12” x 12”. Mine is the bumpy little Kaffir Lime that you saw in my last newsletter. Some of the classes will be given at Filoli Gardens in Woodside and there is currently a plethora of botanical works on display there. Be sure to visit. I’ll be taking two all-day painting classes with storied international instructors and a scant fifteen students each. Feeling daunted, however.
The entire 127 painting collection from the Alcatraz Florilegium will return to The Rock from Sept 16 – Jan 17. My Nasturtium and Black Walnut paintings will be on exhibit in the Band Room on Alcatraz Island, where (I’ve mentioned this favorite factoid before) Al Capone played banjo with his band, The Rock Islanders. You’ll have to book the ferry but the view is free, as is the botanical exhibition.
Next up will be our NCalSBA chapter’s annual Plants Illustrated show at the Berkeley Botanical Gardens in the Julia Morgan Hall, Jan 9 – 25. This year we are Celebrating Trees, and you can see Jeffrey pinecone there for the first and last time. Jeffrey and I now suffer from pinecone overload and one of us must retire soon!
I’m sending good thoughts to the Key West Garden Club members who maintain the non-profit botanical garden on the far coast of the Florida Keys. A year ago I toured their little known, free to the public, native tropical garden by the sea and it is a gem. It’s located at a National Historic Civil War fort, now the West Martello Tower Garden Center, in Key West Florida. Certainly inundated by Hurricane Irma, they will have a horrific cleanup ahead. Donate or visit when you can. www.keywestgardenclub.com
I spent time this summer at Lake Tahoe and Hope Valley CA drawing, in graphite, nearly 100 life-sized Quaking Aspen leaves swinging on branches from a lanky white trunk. Did you know that Aspen leaves shimmer and rustle so effortlessly because their stems are flat, enabling them to catch the slightest breeze? Can’t wait to paint them with color in Fall when the leaves turn gold and hopefully begin to dance on the paper.
There are several new Bug Hotels posted on my website gallery from the Bento Box collection. Please have a look. Stay cool if you are in the Western U.S., stay dry in the East and watch out for tornados just about everywhere. Good grief!
If you missed seeing the Alcatraz Florilegium in Marin last Fall, your next chance is June 3 – 31 when it will be on exhibit at the Orinda Library Art Gallery. I’ll be at the Artists’ Reception on June 3, from 3 – 5:30 PM where either my Black Walnut or Nasturtium will be exhibited along with 76 other pieces from the Florilegium. A short talk about Alcatraz Island and the Florilegium’s history will begin at 3 PM. Most venues are not large enough to include all 127 paintings in the collection, so we have published a brilliant catalogue of the entire Alcatraz Florilegium, which you may view and/or buy for $30 plus shipping by sending an email to www.orders@ncalsba.org Or you can pick one up from me, as I have several in my studio. My second Alcatraz painting will show in October on The Rock, in the Band Room where Al Capone strummed banjo with his prison band, The Rock Islanders. Love that!
THE ALCATRAZ FLORILEGIUM: ARTWORK FROM THE GARDENS OF ALCATRAZ, JUNE 3 – 31, 2017
ARTISTS’ RECEPTION—JUNE 3, 2017, 3 – 5:30 PM
ORINDA LIBRARY
26 ORINDA WAY, ORINDA CA, 94563
MON-TH,10 AM – 8 PM; FRI-SAT 10 AM – 6 PM; SUN 1 -5 PM
(925) 254-2184 www.lamorindaarts.org
#CaliforniaSuperBloom
We’ve been captivated by images and sights of our CA wildflowers this bountiful spring. After record rainfall, hundreds of wildflower species are blooming and interest in native plants is growing. I took part in an enlightening Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour this month, www.Bringingbackthenatives.net. Forty-six homeowners shared their native gardens with 1,500 Bay Area residents and visitors during this free annual tour. Visitors were intrigued by the idea of garden art as habitat for pollinators. Evidently it’s Bug Hotel high-season because many have recently sold—NO VACANCY. Check my website image gallery to see if your favorite is still available. However, a sushi chef just gave me some beautifully lacquered bento boxes . . . perfect for Bug Hotels.
Regarding my botanical painting progress: Have you seen my new Dichondra creeping up a sandstone wall, or the family of Moonshells on the beach, or the (evidently illegal) Opium Poppy seedpods floating on vellum? These new works are now posted on my website gallery www.BonniesBotanicalArt.com. I know you haven’t seen my lumpy little Kaffir lime because I keep going back to work on it. Perhaps I’ll post it here unfinished, still attached to its Arches Watercolor block before it’s set free and digitized by my Fine Art Printer. See anything to correct? Last chance.
Up next: Quaking Aspen, Populous tremuloides. Full size watercolor sheet. Big art. Do you know of a lovely stand of Aspen where I can paint?
Coming right up this week is a different sort of botanical art show. Celebrating winter, the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden is hosting an exhibit of the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists featuring ‘Seeds and Pods’. I will be showing my Jeffrey Pinecone and the toxic (I learned the hard way) Black Walnut. The show runs for two weeks and opens this Friday Feb 10. I’ll be at the reception and I plan to gallery sit on both Feb 17 and Feb 21 from 1-4 pm. I’d love to see you there.
Plants Illustrated: Seeds and Pods
Feb. 10 – Feb 21, 2017
10 – 4 pm. daily
University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
200 Centennial Dr.
Berkeley CA 94720
(510) 643-2755
www.garden@berkeley.edu
The following blurb was part of the Berkeley Botanical Garden’s December Member Newsletter. I was thrilled they asked to publish my ‘Knucklehead’ pumpkin vine illustration, Cucurbita pepo, to accompany their story.
That’s it for this quarter. Unless it’s underwater, I’m sure your garden is as happy as mine.
Good to Know!
Question: What are some fun facts about pumpkins?
C. pepo, ‘Knuckle Head’ illustration by Bonnie Bonner
Answer: Pumpkins are a type of winter squash in the family Cucurbitaceae. The flesh is usually a little too coarse and strong-flavored for eating. Three species provide us with “pumpkins”: C. pepo, C. maxima and C. argyrosperma (formerly C. mixta).
Members of the genus Cucurbita are variously called squashes, pumpkins, vegetable marrows, and gourds. Typically, the plants are trailing vines with extensive roots and harsh, often prickly leaves and stems. Squash plants produce male flowers three to four days before producing female flowers. Usually three male flowers are formed for each female, open only for one day. Nutritionally the fruits are excellent sources of vitamins A and C, iron and potassium. In some species, the seeds are roasted and can have protein and oil contents of 30 to 40%.
Cucurbita pepo is the northernmost species of squash and appeared in Oaxaca about 10,000 years ago. Although the flesh of mature fruit may be stored, it quickly loses its flavor, and should be eaten quickly or dried. C. argyrosperma, also known as cushaw, also has northern hemisphere origins. Cucurbita maxima is of South American origin. Today this winter-type squash is grown throughout the world, particularly in Europe, India, the Philippines, and the United States. This species provides us with the most gigantic pumpkins; fruits weighing 90 pounds are common. Chilean varieties that have become common foods in the U.S. include acorn, banana, and hubbard. Some authorities claim the genus has more forms that any other cultivated food plant.
The entire 127 painting collection from the Alcatraz Florilegium will return to The Rock from Sept 16 – Jan 17. My Nasturtium and Black Walnut paintings will be on exhibit in the Band Room on Alcatraz Island, where (I’ve mentioned this favorite factoid before) Al Capone played banjo with his band, The Rock Islanders. You’ll have to book the ferry but the view is free, as is the botanical exhibition.
