The Botanical Artists Guild of Southern California (BAGSC) hosted our annual Day of Botanical Art this year on Saturday and Sunday, February 27 and 28, 2021, with several innovations.
For the previous two years, BAGSC has held this very successful live event at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden as a day of community outreach for local members, potential members and all those interested in learning more about botanical art. In the past, ten local BAGSC artists each taught a 40-minute, fundamental botanical art lesson in the medium of their choice. Up to 50 enthusiastic participants were able to rotate through the various lessons in round-robin fashion throughout the day.
This year, the COVID lockdown gave us the chance to try something different. Aside from the (obvious) switch from a one-day to a two-day format, we were able to take the event online and global in scope, in terms of both participants and instructors.
The virtual webinar platform gave us the opportunity to include ten of our far-flung BAGSC artists/members as instructors—artists who normally wouldn’t have been able to take part in a live local BAGSC event due to their geographical restrictions.
During the online two-day event, a variety of workshops were presented for beginners and more advanced artists by an enviable roster of distinguished BAGSC botanical artists: Melanie Campbell Carter, Tucson, Arizona; Nina Antze, Sebastapol, California; Jude Wiesenfeld, Toronto, Canada; Jan Clouse, Santa Barbara, California; Catherine Watters, Orinda, California; Anna Suprunenko, from Slovenia and just recently of London, UK; Sasha Viazmensky, St. Petersburg, Russia; Lee McCaffree, Orinda, California; Donnett Vanek, Frazier Park, California; and, Akiko Enokido, Tokyo, Japan.
Each artist presented a 40 minute teaching demonstration, either live or pre-recorded, followed by a 10-minute live Q & A based on audience questions entered into the 'chat'. Thanks to the generosity of our artists, each workshop was recorded and made available to participants after the event for a week of further viewing.
More than 150 BAGSC members and guests sampled the impressive array of skills on display in graphite, composition, drawing, colored pencil and watercolor.
After the hardship of not being able to gather in person in 2020, BAGSC was thrilled to bring our ten artist members to this large and appreciative audience, all without anyone having to leave the comforts of home.