Few people are able to make their living as a botanical artist. Do you make your living as a full-time botanical artist? If not, what’s your day job?
Sandra Wall Armitage
For many years I worked freelance and also taught part at Universities and Colleges of Art. I taught plant drawing and textile design. I still do the occasional commission for greeting cards and home wares, but mostly do botanical paintings for exhibition or run workshops.
Kathleen Baker
I used to be a full-time teacher of Biology. Since retirement I have spent much time doing botanical watercolour paintings. I would like to make a living from my botanical paintings.
Susan Christopher-Coulson
Teaching botanical work/coloured pencil has become an important parallel to working as a botanical artist and the two work symbiotically – but it is necessary to keep a balance between the two aspects so that there is sufficient time to create the original artwork!
Susan Dalton
I do not make my living as a full-time botanical artist – my day job is doing all the secretarial work and book keeping for my husband’s Carpentry & Joinery Company – I have to fit my painting in as and when I can!
Brigitte Daniel
Yes, I do. But I have a medical condition and I have to work from home. Botanical art is the only real choice I have since I could no longer continue my botanical career and it is my way of keeping in touch with the botanical world.
Susan Hillier
I have made a living as a full time artist for nearly 40 years, mainly but not exclusively botanical,
I also teach botanical painting.
Jennifer Jenkins
I am not a full-time artist. I am retired.
Kay Rees Davies
I have retired from teaching music as my botanical art took over. I teach at many venues and am a tutor for the Distance Learning Diploma Course for the SBA. I’m not sure that this would entirely make my living, but it helps!
Margaret Stevens
For over 20 years I have made my living by painting and teaching, supplemented by a small widow’s pension. At this point I feel it is necessary to say that talent alone will not enable you to earn a living. Artists by their very nature are not terribly organised and that is what lets some of them down. You need a certain amount of business acumen and above all NEVER miss a deadline. If you take on a job it must be completed on time regardless of your personal circumstances. I have worked with a raging temperature doing an hour at my desk and an hour or two in bed alternately in order to get a job out. That is when you hate it and wonder why you chose such a means of earning a living. Whilst waiting for two hip replacement operations I could not sit down for 2 years, dependent on a perching stool for rest – or flat out in bed. Still I had to carry on and knowing it is one’s livelihood is a great spur!
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