Holiday Gifts Created with Botanical Art

In November, 11 colored pencil students gathered in a class led by Libby Kyer to create festive cutting boards in “Cutting Edge Art.” Over 3 days, we made strong compositions suitable to be reproduced for glass cutting boards. Many students ordered multiples of their works after they saw the finished results on their first cutting board. It was a great class, resulting in new skills in colored pencil and composition and a great gift, hand-made for the holidays. Check out some of the results!

 

"Pumpkin Fest," the completed cutting board photographed on a dark cloth. You can see the pattern of the glass on the board, which is why artists created images with strong color and detail, to show well through the glass. This one is by Jan Boyd-Haring. Her finished artwork is shown below.

 

This vibrant image reproduced well under glass, and shows up  more clearly than in the photo above, but design must take the glass texture into consideration.

 

One of the great pleasures of this class was seeing the variety of composition, color and approach exhibited among the artists. Check it out!

 

 

Autumn Leaves by Kristi Czajkowski

 

 

 

Cherry Lattice by Carol Varian

 

 

 

The Gourd by Elizabeth Lococz

 

 

 

 



Gourd #1 by Mary Barnes

 

 

 

 

 

Harvest by Vickey Wood

 

 

 

 

Herbs by Katy Howe

 

 

 

 

Sunflower by Hannah Rottman

 

 

It being the beginning of a new year, perhaps it's time to look into classes you might find inspiring, challenging or needed. Take a look and some good leads under Workshop Listings. You'll find drawing classes from Susan Rubin and Marjorie Leggitt, a range of botanical art classes from the School of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and links to Colorado Institute of Art and Art Students League of Denver. Especially in cold weather, it's nice to have a good studio to go to and share a learning experience with other artists. Hope to see you in the educational scence soon!