Nikki Strange - Watercolor Botanicals: 20 Prints to Paint and Frame

Design and layout 2019

Quarto Publishing plc, an imprint of The Quarto Group

Published in 2019 by Abrams Noterie, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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From a young age, I was often found at the kitchen table, scribbling and painting away, inspired by the ferns, wild daisies, and thistles I had collected while walking in the countryside close to my home. I went on to study textiles at university, and I remained drawn to natural flora and tropical details for my design work.

Inspiration naturally came from classic designers such as William Morris, but also from my vacations in Goa, India, an area I was lucky enough to visit often to see family and the small villages where my grandparents had grown up. I was frequently taken aback by the dense jungles and vast canopies of trees that coexisted alongside villages and larger cities. I was bewildered that palm trees were as common as oak trees, and that beautiful, ornate banana leaves could be found thriving next to even the most rundown and abandoned buildings.

Since then I have continued to travel to places with stunning wildlife and gardens, including Morocco, Cambodia, Indonesia, and California. These travels have inspired me to no end with my paintings and design work. The places I have visited have also informed the way I decorate my space. I now live in an apartment in urban East London, but my home is embellished with plants and paintings of plants that remind me of these trips and give a fresh and natural energy to my metropolitan environment.

Working with watercolor to visually capture the organic forms of plants is rewarding and unpredictable, particularly when you allow yourself to give up control of the paint and let it and the water work their magic. In this book I want to share my experiences of painting with you, and teach you techniques and easy ways to paint botanical prints for your own home, starting with just a few colors and brushes.

I have designed twenty projects based around some of my favorite plants, from an out-of-this-world-looking begonia to a cute spiky cactus. The projects detail which watercolors to use and how to mix them to create the shades I used. The step-by-step instructions and photography guide you through my methods, so you have everything you need to create your very own botanical paintings, even if you do not have plants around you that you can draw on from life. An added bonus is that these projects dont take very long to reproduce, and make a perfect Sunday afternoon or weekday after-work activity.