Some talented artists

Last Friday night we launched the Botanica calendar at the Botanic Gardens.  A group of artists formed a Botanical Art Interest Group several years ago, meeting once a month to paint flowers or leaves they see around our Gardens.  They are nearly all self taught, and have really progressed in skill over the years.  As part of the celebrations for our tenth birthday, the committee produced a calendar from their paintings, collected over the last four years.

 We had to choose 13 images for the cover and the pages for each month, then selected a black & white pencil sketch for the envelope.
The paintings almost selected themselves, as they had to be portrait not landscape, and we also wanted where possible to have the painting on the month when it flowers.  That was the easy part.  I didn't realise how much discussion there would be to write a description of each plant in only a few lines!

Maya was describing the process to the assembled audience here.  If you double click you should be able to see each of the proofed pages.  We are thrilled with the result.

When you double click you will see that this is actually a python stuck - it had swallowed a rat and could not get back out of the shed at our son's house!  Dougal (after taking the photo) prised up the paver, then loosened a couple of screws and the python quickly retreated inside the shed again.  Dougal will be a little more careful entering and working in the shed in future.  Pythons are not dangerous and it has done a good job catching rats!    They were a bit more concerned  when on the same day Hamish almost trod on a black snake when walking home from school across a grassy area - now they are poisonous!  Life in country areas can be exciting.