Submitting an Artwork to the FFI

Class Overview: 

This class, led by instructor Scott Stapleton, has a specific end-goal in mind, namely, the submission of a botanical artwork to the Flora & Fauna Illustrata (FFI), the “100 year project” housed in the Andersen Horticultural Library that aims to document all the plant and animal species that make the Arboretum their home.  It cannot guarantee acceptance into the collection,  but it can, and will, introduce students to the purpose and history of florilegia and to the scientific and artistic prerequisites for submitting such a work.   

The class presumes some familiarity with watercolor and/or colored pencil and/or graphite.

In this class, you will: 

• Learn the research skills necessary for documenting a particular plant’s distinctive features.
• Develop a point of view regarding the artistic representation of the plant.
• Hone the technical skills with which the plant will be depicted.

Supplies:  All supplies are the responsibility of the student. Because this is an intermediate/advanced class, it is assumed the student will already have a professional grade collection of materials in the medium of their choice. 
 
If you are in need of supplies, there will be time to acquire them upon the recommendation of the instructor in the first class. Which materials and substrate (paper) will, of course, depend on the medium chosen and the conception imagined.

Instructor:

Before he began teaching botanical art at the Arboretum, Scott was a printmaker, an art librarian and a pastor. He is a past president of the Great River Chapter of Botanical Artists. He also taught the introductory and advanced colored pencil classes at the Minnesota School of Botanical Art, where he led a yearslong discussion of the book "Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and the Rewards) of Artmaking." He is a regular contributor to The Botanical Artist, the journal of the American Society of Botanical Artists, and every now and then a maker of carefully crafted works of botanical art.