What is Botanart?

Botanical art is an art form that attempts to represent botanical form and beauty in the natural world. The paintings are based on the artist's personal interpretations of plants and trees. The paintings are based on close observation of the reactions of plants in their natural environment. The art is based on association between the plants and the artist. In such paintings an artist uses his or her own imagination along with ideas from nature.

These paintings are based on observation of designs and colors of different plant elements. Artists carefully study the elements of color and design found in nature. They work on the basic skills and create drawings of plants based on the study of plants. The art focuses on learning and observing how to draw plants with accuracy.

The technique lies in drawing a plant to create a beautiful work of art. The pattern of light is studied to give the drawing a three-dimensional effect. Most of the artists are proficient in using the fundamental techniques of drawing. They use botanical watercolors and colored pencils for drawing.
The skill of the art lies in practicing through variety of leaves, seedpods, roots, fruit, and flowers. The plants are drawn using pencil, pen, ink techniques, water colors and pencil crayons in different combinations. Many artists work in the field but some carry these plants to their studios and paint indoors.

The skill involves drawing using a live plant material which includes foliage, fruits, twigs, roots and flowers. The artist must be familiar with plant structure and must be able to identify plants. The artist must know about local, wild garden flowers, fruits and fungi. Artists can chose variety of options and draw ferns, mosses, conifers, cultivated plants in isolation or in their natural habitat. The artist can use hand lenses or magnifying glasses to minutely observe plants.

Many artists prefer to draw endemic, rare, and endangered plants to bring variety in their paintings. They also use various underlying themes such as saving trees or paintings based on medicinal plants. The botanical paintings are painted very accurately and resemble plants as they actually appear.. These paintings highlight the plants of a particular species or genre. Many botanartists try to show the diversity of plants in their paintings and motivate people to protect and save them.