From botanical illustrations to chinese painting

As far as I remember, I have always loved drawing or painting, but I never had any proper class. When I was a kid, probably around 11 years old, I won a drawing contest. The price was a voucher to spend some money in an art shop. I used that money to buy some watercolours... that was my first introduction to this technique.

I have always found old botanical illustrations absolutely fascinating. You know, the kind of drawings explorers would bring back from their travels around the world... an interesting mix between art, science and travels: probably my three passions in life ! So I naturally started painting flowers, with more or less success!

When I was living in Australia (between 2003 and 2006), I enrolled in a botanical illustration workshop over a week end. A week end is far too short, but I absolutely loved it! The setting (a kind of first floor glasshouse within one of the CSIRO buildings in Canberra), the people, the atmosphere... it was great ! And during this workshop, I produced this picture on the right.

When I moved from Australia to the UK in 2006, I started investigating for a similar class... but couldn't find any. Instead, I found a class entitled 'oriental watercoulour'.

I have to admit that I had to do a bit a web search to find out what that was about. Still not quite sure about the content of the class and still not knowing what 'oriental watercolour' meant, I decided to give it a go... and that's how I discovered Chinese brush painting...