Coral Guest is a botanical artist, author and teacher whose book, Painting Flowers in Watercolour: A Naturalistic Approach is one of the classic resources of the discipline. It was published in 2001 as widespread interest in botanical art was gaining momentum. Her book, while no longer in print, can still be found on the used book market.
Prior to writing her book, Coral taught painting classes at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, at Monet’s garden in Giverny, and in the Master Class Botanical Art Program that was created by Dr. Shirley Sherwood and taught worldwide at Orient Express Hotels.
Today Coral teaches less and focuses on commission work. Working life-size, she often uses the largest sheets of watercolor paper to enable a whole plant to be included in the painting. Her botanical interests lie in painting white inflorescence in particular and bulbous plants in general. Her creative interests include the practice of experimental study work and the creation of intense and detailed tonal drawings. Her current projects include works on Paeonia and Tulipa cultivars through which she continues to develop work that defines the subtlety of floral tone and color.
Dr. Shirley Sherwood began collecting Coral’s work in the early 1990s and her collection includes Coral’s painting of Lilium longiflorum ‘Ice Queen’, as well as the Lilium regale of 2007, which shows the tepals, stem and bulb of an entire plant in a 5-foot high painting. In the introduction to Coral’s book, Dr. Sherwood describes Coral as one of “the very best of today’s artists, fueling the renaissance of botanical art.”
Please join me in welcoming Coral Guest, our featured guest for December!
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ArtPlantae:
Coral, welcome! Your book is one of the first botanical painting books I ever purchased. It is a treat to have the opportunity to chat with you this month.
You were a busy botanical artist long before your book went to print. How did your botanical art career begin?
Coral Guest:
I began by sketching plants on a travel scholarship in 1979 when in Japan studying brush and ink calligraphy in a remote area. I discovered my purpose as a botanical artist by being in solitude with nature and observing plants in natural light in their natural surroundings. At that time, botanical art was not taught in art colleges accept as an aspect of illustration. Having trained in fine art, I sought to fuse the techniques of observational painting with my personal interest in the plant kingdom and horticulture. Timing is everything, and I was inspired by the Rory McEwen exhibition I had seen in 1974 in London. I felt that the zeitgeist was in favour of something new developing amongst those artists occupied with painting the plant kingdom, and felt my purpose was partly to bring this type of work to the attention of mainstream art and the public in general.
On return from my travels, in my early 20’s I went daily to the local florist and bought the same cultivar of blue iris. I trained myself by observing and painting this particular flower over and over again, experimenting and sketching and writing notes. This went on for more than six months, until I began to see the work developing. I then moved on to painting other plants. During these early stages of development, I cultivated the purist watercolour method, adapting it to painting flora.
By 1981 I had built a collection of work, mainly based on bulbous plants. I took my portfolio to many London art galleries in person, which was the norm in a world before the Internet event. My work was received with interest but the general comment was that there was no market for it, so none of the mainstream galleries at this early stage were willing to risk exhibiting this work. I applied for five art grants but was again rejected as they could not find a label for me, not being able to define it as either art or illustration. At this time for several years I painted during the day and worked in the evenings teaching crafts at a local centre for children whose parents were working after school hours. Repeated rejections continued until 1982, when eventually at the point of giving up I lost heart and walked past a gallery where I had made an appointment. For some unknown reason I crossed over the street and went instead into the Swann Gallery. There I met Oliver Swann, who looked at my work and immediately offered me an exhibition. Thereafter, I exhibited works of bulbous plants at the RHS, and was consequently invited to teach Flower Painting at Kew. In 1993 I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Shirley Sherwood and it was at this point I realised I was a part of something new.
What do you feel is the best way to learn this type of botanical art and illustration for today’s market and given the options and opportunities we now have with digital media?
Firstly it is necessary to be clear about what it is you are most interested in, and what you would like your purpose to be in the field of Botanical Art.
From this point, carefully and thoroughly research all options available and the tutors who teach, with a view to finding and attending a course or series of workshops. Then make an informed decision, based on your natural inclinations, and commit yourself to the training.
Remember that the market is created by artists themselves as an on-going senario. All avenues of Botanical Art require long term endeavour and so it is important to train in what you are genuinely interested in. Focus on this, rather than on the market.
I see the opportunities for Botanical Illustration through digital media as something that is about to expand, as more young artists recognise the potential that is waiting there to be developed into something new and extraordinary. The traditional aspects of drawing and painting within Botanical Art are continuously evolving, and because the possibilities for studying are endless, the important issue is to choose carefully what is right for you as an individual.
What a wonderfully inspiring story Coral – thanks so much :)
Thank you Hedera, this is nice to know.
Your history and comments are very important to anyone interested in studying and painting botanical art. Your journey to Japan and working in brush painting reminds me of my studies in this area which teach you a great deal of thought and purpose. I studied with two chinese brush painters and learned about gathering your thoughts and chi before you begin to put the brush to paper. And, how to organize your mind so you proceeded with success.
I understand completely what you are saying Arillyn. I embraced the Eastern approach to painting at the beginning because the benefits are real and we did not have any comparable methodology in our culture. To a degree the esoteric approach of the East has been integrated unconsciously into our own culture, which I am very pleased about. Even on the fundamental and simple practical level, many artists now acknowledge the importance of breathing deeply and regularly when working on detailed precision work. When involved in a long term painting career, working for many hours each day, it is apprppriate to ensure that mental pressure and physical strain is not accumulated, but rather that we have on-going good physical and psycological health.
ArtPlantae: Your book is about naturalistic flower painting. You make a distinction between this type of painting and painting in the service of science. What is naturalistic flower painting and how does it differ from scientific botanical illustration?
Coral:
Naturalistic flower painting is essentially an artistic endeavour that uses classical art processes to enable the artist to understand and describe the form of a plant when illuminated by natural day light. It is also an artistic philosophy that seeks to express the purity that exists in the world of flowers, which I term Beauty. In essence, naturalistic flower painting honours the plant kingdom in a way that is creative, using technical disciplines that require concentration and focus as well as spontaneity. The artist’s personality is present in the work, in the form of choices that are made to convey the beauty that is perceived. In this way I see it as a constantly evolving history that stretches back to Durer and beyond.
Scientific botanical illustration has at its disposal a number of painting and drawing techniques that the artist uses to describe the form and function of a plant. Its specific purpose is to create a botanical document by which a plant can be identified, and described or themed, for exhibition, publication, scientific record and archiving. In this way its function is fundamentally in service to scientific activity. I consider the best and most proficient scientific illustrations to be so superlative that they transcend their function and exist also as an art.
It’s a long time ago now that I first formalised these definitions in the book, and in essence it served to help me personally to understand what was happening and where we were going. Since then so much has developed, and the edges of these definitions are blurred and hybridization has occurred amongst the many disciplines. The term botanical art did not exist when I began painting flowers. Dr Shirley Sherwood initiated this inspired description, defining it as a genre in its own right making Botanical Art an umbrella under which committed artists of all kinds who love plants can make a contribution, develop their work and their career, and be a part of the renaissance.
Image courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing and Coral Guest. All rights reserved
ArtPlantae:
When I first began to study botanical art, I enjoyed learning about neutral tint from my instructor and from your book. I approached the mixing of neutral tint the same way I approached acid-base titrations in chemistry lab, and was very careful to add just enough cadmium yellow to change the purple mixture to black. (Remember, I come to this from the science side, not the art side).
Can you take a moment to explain what neutral tint is and why it works?
Coral:
In 18th century England, when watercolour came of age in the form of picturesque landscape painting, one of the many issues that artists set out to resolve was the mixing of greys to shade their colours, and to cleanly reduce the saturation of both the warm and cool hues on their palette. Black pigments, such as Lamp Black, were found to lack subtlety and to corrupt the purity of other colours. In order to fulfill their aesthetic need many artists experimented, mixing their own formulas of grey and black from two or three colours. In England, these black/grey formulas became termed ‘neutral tint’ as a description of their function. Thomas Reeves who set up as a commercial color maker in London in 1766 was the first to sell Neutral Tint commercially. Today it is still widely available and each brand has their unique formula.
When first pondering on a formulation for my own Neutral Tint, I decided for reasons of consistency and harmony to use three of the primary colours that were already present in my palette. Firstly I mixed a violet from French Ultramarine and Permanent Alizarin Crimson. Minute amounts of Cadmium Yellow were then introduced into this violet, and mixed until the point came when the combination metamorphosed into a dark neutral black/grey colour. I see your point Tania, about your approach as a chemist, because it is possible to go past the neutralisation point if too much yellow is added. If this does happen, it is best to go back to beginning and start over again with the mixing.
The neutralisation point of the colour occurs because the Neutral Tint mixture is made basically from three primary colours that complete the full rainbow spectrum, and when mixed together in the right balance they cancel out all the light value in each other. In the manufacturing of artist’s paint this is done through exacting measurement, but as an artist mixing my own I work carefully in a regulated order and trust my trained eye to recognise the point at which the neutral black hue appears. This curious mixture is the completion of the subtractive colour mixing process, when all wave lengths of light are absorbed into the physical mixture and none are reflected back to the observer as colour.
why would you go back to the beginning if you add too much cad yellow? Why not just add more of the other two colors till it balances?
I appreciate this very valid point Jane, as no one wants to discard unused paint. If too much Cadmium Yellow has unbalanced the mixture, adding more French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson can eventually result in the right mixture. However, it is more common to waste even more paint through this action, simply because it is difficult to achieve the right balance through random mixing.
So just to clarify: the first mixture of French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson produces a definitive bluish violet colour. The colour value of this bluish violet is then cancelled out by the Cadmium Yellow because this yellow is the opposite (complementary) of the bluish violet mixture. Thus the Neutral Tint is produced.
The key to success is to approach the mixing in a gentle methodical way, and with a little practice and experimentation it is easy to familiarise oneself with the process.
At the start of a painting I make some Neutral Tint mixture in a small shallow ceramic dish, which I keep air tight with a lid or plastic film when it’s not in use. I then use the mixture throughout the painting when I need it.
ArtPlantae:
You write that neutral tint is used to dull colors or to create dark shades. Did you use neutral tint when you painted your amazing Tulipa ‘Queen of Night’?
Coral:
Yes, for the ‘Queen of Night’ tepals I used Neutral Tint mixed with various combinations of Permanent Magenta, Winsor Violet, and Cerulean Blue. I was seeking a very contemporary and sumptuous image to represent the richness of this tulip. The road to completion with this particular painting was littered with many unsuccessful study works. Every single one of these preparatory works was absolutely necessary to the final result, and I cannot emphasis enough the value of studying a plant in colour before embarking upon a more highly polished precision work. The study work experience acts as a foundation for confidence and it has a mysterious way of making the impossible possible.
Winsor & Newton produce a Neutral Tint – have you ever tried this? I would imagine mixing is always optimum but as mentioned can be very difficult to get the exact neutral tint required and you mentioned keeping your mix in a dish for future use. I have used a tiny bit of neutral tint and it seems to work quite well – but I would like to know your thoughts on this.
Thank you.
I see your point Vicki – why would one need to mix a colour when it can be purchased ready mixed?
The Winsor and Newton Neutral tint is made from Copper Phthalocyanine, Carbon Black, and Quinacridone. This is an extremely useful colour mix for circumstances other than my own version of flower painting. However, the reason I don’t use it myself is because it would add more colours to my palette (Copper Phthalocyanine and Carbon Black) and this is what I want to avoid.
My own mixture is made from three of the colours that are already present in my palette that I use regularly. For me, this brings a balanced synchronicity to the colour value in a painting, which makes for an overall harmony in the work.
Neutral Tint is easy to achieve with a little practice. The principle is quite simple. For artists using a different palette to my own, it is usually possible to formulate a Neutral Tint mixture of one’s own, made from three of the primary colours from the basic palette. If a ready mixed Neutral Tint colour made from my own recipe were available commercially, I would be the first in the queue to buy it.
Thank you Coral, makes great sense.
Appreciate the explanation.
Coral,
A reader has asked…
Do you ever change your formula for neutral tint?
Have you ever changed it in response to the local color of a specimen?
I have experimented with other mixtures made from other colour palettes, although for myself I generally use the one described here for the Flower Painting. I can understand how you may like to work with the Neutral Tint in an alternative way, and occasionally I do this too when painting a flower or other specimen as the singular subject in a painting, where no stem or leaf is included.
After determining the basic local or natural colour of the single specimen, it is possible to create a tailored Neutral Tint to suit this specimen alone. This can be done by mixing two other colours with this local colour. What two other colours you use will be dependent upon what the actual local colour is.
Generally, remember that you need to subtract the colour out of the Neutral Tint mix by combining what amounts to three primaries. First mix a blue violet and then add the yellow in sequence.
Without wishing to over complicate this notion, this is how it works if you have, for example, a pink peony with a local colour of Quinacridone Magenta:
Place some Quinacridone Magenta on the palette and add some blue of your choice to create a bluish violet (for example Cerulean Blue or French Ultramarine). Next add some yellow of your choice (for example Cadmium Yellow or Cadmium Lemon). This produces a Neutral Tint to shade the local colour of the pink peony.
As another example/idea, if you had a seed pod with a local colour of Yellow Ochre, you could mix a bluish violet from French Ultramarine and Alizarin Crimson, and then add some Yellow Ochre to this mixture to produce the Neutral Tint to shade the colour of the seed pod.
The above brings good harmonious shading to local colour in a painting of a single specimen.
Thank you, Coral, for your thorough explanation and examples.
Image courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing and Coral Guest. All rights reserved
ArtPlantae:
In your book, you identify the warm and cool colors botanical artists should have in their palettes. You also list four additional colors that will produce the intense pinks and magenta colors seen in some flowers. Your instructions made me wonder about that shocking Opera Rose color I have seen in artists’ palettes. Is it possible to create this color using the palette you’ve outlined in your book?
Coral:
The nearest that could be achieved to Opera Rose would be a mixture of Permanent Rose and Quinacridone Magenta, which was used in the Tulipa ‘Peach Blossom’ painting shown at the top of this featured page. The relationship between the chemist colour maker and the artist has always been symbiotic. They run in parallel and are inseparable. For the flower painter, the Opera Rose colour is the spectacular missing piece of the jigsaw. At the time the book was written Opera Rose was not available, and if it had I would certainly have included it in the list of additional bright colours, as it can be successfully incorporated into the existing system.
Coral, in one book I had purchased, the author recommended a grey underpainting first, similar to your neutral tint but a premixed tube such as Winsor Newton. I tried this for a few paintings but realized that the danger of making a muddy mixture outweighed the convenience, and abandoned it in favor of your method, which seems so logical and has such good results. Thank you for sharing your techniques with us! By the way, is Opera Rose still a fugitive pigment? Are there any manufacturers who offer a permanent version?
Thank you for your very interesting comment Orchidartist. It is really very pleasing to know that the Neutral Tint mixing method is of use to your work.
The Winsor and Newton Artists Watercolour Opera Rose is permanence rated as B, which makes it moderately durable. The Daniel Smith comparable colour Opera Pink is given a light fast rating of Very Good. Both Opera Rose and Opera Pink await testing results via ASTM.
When it was first introduced, I placed a 5cm painted colour square of Opera Rose onto a very sunny south facing window, where it has remained. Having read your inquiry, now seems a good time to take a look at how it has fared.
I have compared this to a newly painted square of the same colour, to find that both squares appear visually identical. So it is certainly durable.
Our standards today are rightly very high, and a durable colour is still an improvement on many of the 19th century colours we would have had in the past.
I have today contacted Winsor and Newton asking if they anticipate being able to eventually produce Opera Rose with a grading of A for Permanent. I shall let you know their response.
The pigment used for Opera Rose is a Fluorescent dye/resin based pigment, and Quinacridone. The fluorescent pigments, whist being the key to brilliance are not at present permanently lightfast. So moderately durable is the optimum permanence available to date.
I have asked Winsor and Newton if they foresee the invention of a more lightfast fluorescent pigment, and they have said that this is a question for the pigment maker. But Winsor and Newton commented that as the search for improvement is always on-going, this is a case of never say never. So we wait to see what the future brings.
Image courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing and Coral Guest. All rights reserved
ArtPlantae:
You have said you wrote your book to serve as a foundation for beginning artists. I can create a list of items I think beginning artists will appreciate. In fact, I will do this next. But first I need to ask, do you plan to write a second edition or a new book altogether?
Coral:
At this moment in time there are no plans to produce a second edition or a new instructional book. I feel that the book was of its time, and although now outdated in various ways it has added to the collective pool of knowledge on flower painting ideas, techniques and methods that were not generally practiced before it was published. Many botanical art teachers have since absorbed these methods and techniques and passed them on through personal teaching and by writing some fabulous books filled with contemporary explanations and paintings. My plan was always to bring the practices of the fine artist to the field of flower painting, and I feel this has been achieved. For me personally the osmosis continues, and I suspect that the many years of experience I have had is likely to inspire me to pass on knowledge in various new ways in the future.
No Coral, your book is not outdated now. Old people say that one should read a good book seven times to understand all aspects. Well, I am with your book in the third round and I still find there inspiring ideas for next year.
Your book has such an outstanding clearness and freshness that I would really welcome it to have an edition in German. There is still a lack of good books about Botanical Painting in Germany.
I greatly appreciate your comments Evelin.
When the book was first initiated, the projections concluded that not enough sales could be generated in Europe to warrant the cost of publishing in other languages, which is why it remains in English only.
It is delightful to know that the book continues to bring you knowledge and inspiration, even though it lacks the inclusion of the more current contemporary colours, such as Opera Rose.
It was originally my hope that the book would reveal a little more each time it was read, offering layers of knowledge, furthering understanding and doing so with a sense of natural lightness and clarity. The fact that you have described your experience in such a generous way makes me smile a lot.
Thank you very much, Coral and thanks to ArtPlantae to give us this chance for conversation.
Merry Christmas! Frohe Weihnachten!
Thank you Evelin and thank you to all who are participating in this conversation.
Image courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing and Coral Guest. All rights reserved
Beginning artists will appreciate Coral’s thorough discussion of many topics and techniques in, Painting Flowers in Watercolour: A Naturalist Approach.
For example:
Watercolor wash techniques
Dry brush techniques
Color palettes
Neutral tint
How to assess a specimen’s color
How to observe and draw a plant
How to create a composition
How to create thumbnail sketches
How to paint tonal sketches
How to create color studies
In Part Two of her book, Coral discusses eight painting projects. In this section, she shares how she approached her drawings and paintings of eight plants (lily, anemone, delphinium, fritillaria, canna, camellia, tulip, bird of paradise).
View examples of Coral’s plant studies in her online gallery at CoralGuest.com (see “Study Work”).
Coral,
Your drawings and paintings are so graceful and filled with movement. The natural beauty of a plant is very present in your paintings. How does one capture natural beauty?
I aim to forge dynamic liveliness into my work, giving a painting or drawing a life of its own. This has to remain true to the subject matter’s actual life. This is what I see as the most valuable aspect of the work.
To achieve this I empathise with the general demeanour of the plant through intense focus upon it. I hold an absolute silent internal space to connect with what I understand is actual natural beauty.
I always feel that techniques and methods are empty without the devotion of the artist to their cause. Techniques and methods serve our purpose – we do not serve them. In the end the work speaks for itself, and this is how it should be.
I am developing a way of seeing and understanding, a personal philosophy, that can grow with the work. When I look at the flower with the intent to paint it, I initially look at the surface of the form. Then intermittently, as my concentration and absorption increases, the flower appears in my perception as layers of being that live and breathe. I translate this into layers of paint, or graphite and carbon.
I observe natural beauty as being without emotion and ordinary, woven through all natural life in the natural world. I sense this as a vast multi-dimensional spectrum of actuality, for which I feel intense unconditional love.
For anyone developing this way of working with the natural world, it is always worthwhile to go beyond the traditional ways of perception as described by art historians such as Gombrich, and instead go straight into reading philosophy. I am currently preparing a short list of worthwhile philosophical books and articles on natural beauty, which some Botanical Painters may find interesting and useful to study. This will be ready in January, and if anyone would like to receive this list of suggested reading, please contact me in the new year.
Thank you, Coral. I am interested in reading more about natural beauty. I will be sure to ask about your list!