{"id":49491,"date":"2015-04-01T10:42:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T14:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/plant-talk\/?p=49491"},"modified":"2015-04-01T13:05:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T17:05:36","slug":"mastering-botanical-watercolor-with-hillary-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/2015\/04\/adult-education\/mastering-botanical-watercolor-with-hillary-parker\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering Botanical Watercolor With Hillary Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hillary<\/a>
Hillary Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hillary Parker\u2019s painting career started with a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cSerendipity has always directed the way for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She enrolled in college to become an elementary school art teacher. In her senior year, a schedule mix-up landed her in an advanced painting course instead of the introductory one. She was granted access to the class on the condition she could handle the work and their weekly critiques.<\/p>\n

For her first project, she chose an artichoke, potato, a head of garlic, and green onions from her own refrigerator and painted individual studies of each of them. Then the big day came.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue to his word, the professor started going down the row of student artwork, harshly critiquing them,\u201d Parker said. \u201cWhen he got to mine, he paused, turned and smiled at me, looked back at my little veggies, and pointed to the artichoke. He said, \u2018I want to eat that<\/em> for dinner.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rheum<\/a>
Rheum raponticum<\/em> (Rhubarb)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty-five years later, Hillary Parker has made a career painting and teaching botanical art and illustration, and this month joins us at the Garden from her home in Florida for her two-day workshop, Finishing Touches<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Parker said it\u2019s nature as a whole that she finds fascinating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see something in nature that stops me in my tracks, I am like an enthusiastic five-year-old who wants to run back home with it, learn as much as I can about it, and share that with everyone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hillary is known for her artistic versatility, at ease with a complex image like a pumpkin vine and a simple, single orchid, as well as adept with painting subjects on a large scale or true-to-life.<\/p>\n

Her paintings capture the intimacy of a tiny flower or a 9-foot-long stone wall\u2014each subject calling for its own unique composition.<\/p>\n\"Hillary<\/a>\n

\"Dicksonia<\/a>
Dicksonia antarctica<\/em> (Woolly Fern Fiddlehead)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Factors that influence the scale of her paintings include physical space where a work will hang, commission budget, the subjects\u2019 vitality and personality, and Hillary\u2019s sense of what she wants to say about that subject.<\/p>\n

Parker\u2019s portfolio<\/a> includes series of plants for various exhibits at botanical gardens. She\u2019s taken on a solo exhibit of orchids in the Andes Mountains of South America and a close examination of the carnivorous Nepenthes<\/em> for an exhibit in Scotland. Last fall, back in the UK, she exhibited a series of mangos from around the world.<\/p>\n

She communicates her knowledge of these plants through her compositions and uses her watercolor skills\u2014the very same ones that wowed her painting professor back in college\u2014to be scientifically accurate in her portrayals.<\/p>\n

The most challenging techniques for watercolorists to master, she said, is the water itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cPigment goes where the water flows,\u201d she said. \u201cSo the name of the game is to master the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Master the water, master the botanical art.<\/p>\n

This spring, <\/em>Hillary Parker<\/em><\/a> comes to NYBG to teach <\/em>Botanical Art & Illustration<\/em><\/a> students how to finish their paintings using techniques to fine-tune and bring their subjects into sharp, clear focus. Students will learn to be their own \u201coutside eye\u201d and develop their own criteria for each painting. Her <\/em>two-day workshop<\/em><\/a> starts April 25.<\/em><\/p>\n\"Upland<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NYBG Adult Education’s latest visiting artist, Hillary Parker, shares her experiences and approach to Botanical Art & Illustration ahead of an upcoming special two-day workshop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":49497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[438],"tags":[4645,719,4438],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/HParker_Big_Bio_540x540.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ph0lU-cSf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49491"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49518,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49491\/revisions\/49518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/plant-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}