+ sophie munns : visual eclectica + : January PlantBank Residency & Workshop.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

January PlantBank Residency & Workshop.

Arriving at the Australian Botanic Gardens at Mt Annan in SW Sydney this week on Monday afternoon, January 4th I was amazed to see how green it was & stopped by the lake on the drive in to take some photos!

It had rained most of the day but I took photos of two different Casuarina Species that I noticed on my last visit when one of them was flowering.

Casuarina

On the road into Plantbank at the ABG Mt Annan

I was delighted to be back at ‪#PlantBank‬ catching up with people back early from Xmas Holidays... rather quiet compared to usual but very pleasant for settling in, finding studio space to set up and seeing where projects are at here at Plantbank.

Below are Seedpods collected in the Whitsundays by Australian Botanic Gardens Mt Annan Director John Siemon last year.

I took loads of photos of them on the first evening & drew them last night! Have been wanting to find these pods for ages.

From Wiki:

Entada rheedii, commonly known as the African Dream Herb or Snuff Box Sea Bean, and as the Cacoon Vine in Jamaica, is a large woody liana or climber. Their seeds have a thick and durable seed coat which allows them to survive lengthy periods of immersion in seawater.

Match Box Seedpods collected in the Whitsunday Islands, Qld
by ABG Director, John Siemon.

Matchbox Seedpod

Below: capturing Match box seedpods with quink ink in my 'new' studio.

First a quick journal drawing ... had to use the 60 cm x 22 cm journal to fit in these pods 50 cm pods ... wanted to capture the form by tracing! They're designed for tracing!

60 cm x 22 cm journal

The second version is slower in execution having thought through what I'm after.

Journal on left and work on paper on right.

After taking loads of photos of the Matchbox Seedpod at ‪#‎Plantbank I worked on Digitalart interpretations like this one below.

Digital art.

Art the moment I am also preparing for the 3 DAY Workshop from January 16 - 18 here next week.

A few have chosen the option of doing a ONE-DAY only workshop and others are travelling from as far as Western Australian & Canberra. I'm really looking forward to running this workshop & one here also in March during the Exhibition I'm holding of my artwork.