Botanical Illustration in Pen and Ink – Kew Online Course

Welcome to this online course from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, brought to you in partnership with David and Charles. You are about to embark on a journey into botanical illustration – a very enjoyable art form that requires attention to detail, focussing your attention on the astounding variation found in nature. Pen and ink is often the medium chosen for documenting new species of flowering plants – everything is drawn to scale to show the characteristics of the plant. In this course, we’ll use a stargazer lily as it’s a large flower with robust structures that are visible to the naked eye. These captivating flowers are loved and admired for their wonderfully large and colourful blooms with prominent spots and a distinctly heady fragrance. Hazel will lead you step-by-step through the process of drawing the lily, starting with basic botany and careful observation of the flower. We’ll use precise measurements to guide our drawing to create an accurate representation.

As an online course, this learning experience allows you to follow at your own pace – enjoy the process and you will enjoy the results! You can watch each section as many times as you need, and you can pause at any point to focus on your work before moving on.

Hazel Wilkes was born in Zimbabwe, but did most of her schooling in South Africa. As a young student, Hazel attended art school to study graphic art – her favourite subjects were anything to do with natural history such as shells, flowers, skulls and birds. She completed a BSc degree at Rhodes University in South Africa in 1994.

On completing her studies, Hazel travelled the world, and while in Hong Kong was fortunate enough to work at the University of Hong Kong as a botanical illustrator. It was here that she was first published – the work was very rewarding and the perfect way to combine her twin passions of art and science.

Now living in the UK, Hazel has been a freelance illustrator at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew since 2002. She specialise in black and white plant depictions of new plant species and has a portfolio of over 300 drawings or plates that have been published in scientific peer reviewed journals and books. A book called New Trees contains over 100 of Hazel’s pen and ink illustrations.

In recent years, Hazel has started teaching art courses at Kew and enjoys exploring other media such as coloured pencil drawing and watercolour painting. She loves teaching botanical art because observing nature gives so much joy to so many people.

In this video, Hazel describes what you will be learning in this course and the materials that you will need. Please note that the materials are no longer available to purchase as a kit, so please source the following items before beginning the next sections of the course:

• Stargazer lily

• Water spray bottle

• A4 sketch paper

• A4 Winsor & Newton smooth Bristol board

• A4 tracing paper

• Tradition H pencil and sharpener

• Eraser – Hazel recommends using a mechanical eraser for precision

• Small paintbrush for brushing away rubbings

• Technical compass

• Fineline pens (sizes 01, 03 and 05) – Hazel uses Micron Pigma

• Ruler

• A white tile or plate

• Sticky tape

• Handheld lens (optional)

The floral dissection handout is available from the Resources tab below.