THE BOTANICAL PALETTE
Margaret Stevens
with The Society of Botanical Artists

Flowers are all about colour, when it comes down to it. In fact, when someone mentions "a riot of colour", you instinctively know it's flowers they're talking about.

So, why hasn't this been done before? Why has no-one followed the "my goodness it's obvious" route of writing a book about flower painting that starts with the colours and works out from there? The answer, of course, is that the conventionally obvious approach - one that's worked perfectly well in countless books up to now - is to group things by flower type. After all, that's the way the botanical guides do it.

But this isn't a guide to growing flowers, it's a guide to painting flowers. Each of the 8 chapters concentrates on a single colour and is filled with practical advice on how to achieve the correct result by the use of translucent washes that retain the delicacy of the subject. All this is backed up with 17 step-by-step demonstrations by members of the SBA, making this a collaborative effort that speaks with quiet authority. There are also 8 projects that allow you to put your developing skills into practice.

As well as drawing on her personal experience and expertise, Margaret also asked SBA Diploma Course students what they personally found difficult about handling colour and the result is that she is particularly good on the deeper and brighter colours and also on how to deal with shadows.

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