Rediscovering botanical painting

Every painting’s varying subject matter and scale offers us distinct opportunities and challenges. Before I start any project, I like to consider what I want to convey, what opportunities and challeng

The garden was a blank canvas when I first moved in. A single tree. A lawn invaded by alkanet. London clay so hard you couldn’t push a spade in. I was more concerned with urgent matters such as the de

Vincent van Gogh made sunflowers his personal motifs, but, when he looked to experiment with colour, a full florist’s roster of irises, roses, poppies, poured out of his brush, as Michael Prodger discovers

My life in the cheese world stemmed from a geeky fascination with microbial life and how those living microbes can change a food product. I started painting through a fascination with soil microbiolog

I STRUGGLED INTO MY LAYERS, picked up my light sketching kit and off I went up into the hills behind where I live. I wasn’t the first to arrive; halfway up the hill I could already hear the cries of e

THIS ARTIST IS A PROFESSIONAL working from her London studio in a mix of oils, charcoals and pastels. In addition to portrait painting, she teaches privately and holds weekly classes, while she has ex