Heeyoung Kim Botanical Art Academy

I am glad that I can launch a year program for botanical art at Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods. Below is summary about it. If you are interested, please contact me for more information. Or if you have friends who want to learn botanical art, please share it.   Thank you!


One Year Courses: July 2014 ~ June 2015
1. Monday Botanical Art Workshops: Four Mondays Each Month 2. Saturday Botanical Art Workshops: 3rd & 4th Saturdays Each Month
Aim of the courses: These courses are designed for botanical art students of all levels who are willing to make commitment to learn or improve drawing and painting skills. The most basic but most important techniques will be studied through the courses with continuity, so that students can truly absorb the techniques and apply them intuitively. No need to memorize or take notes all the time, and forget!  
How it operate: Students are encouraged to register for the full year. Monday Workshops- 1st & 2nd weeks: students will focus on honing techniques…

Soy Bean, Ink, ©Heeyoung Kim

 Britain, country side, Ink, ©Heeyoung Kim

Soy Bean, Spinach and quinoa, Ink, ©Heeyoung Kim
This series of ink illustration was commissioned by a London based design company to create food packages for Linda McCartney Foods new frozen food line. They had very specific concept, so I had to do what they wanted, except the first one. I did the first one, which is more like my style, for their test before I got the assignment. But they decided to use it on one of the package. Their vegetarian frozen food are in the market in 5 countries in Europe with this image on the packages.  At the very end of their TV ad, the packages are shown.  http://www.lindamccartneyfoods.co.uk/see-our-new-tv-ad/

Green Dragon, Pinellia tripartita 'Polly Spout' Watercolor ©Heeyoung
Green Dragon, a very peculiar plant!  At the time I came across this curious plant, I was searching for a native Green Dragon in good shape. A few plants I was observing for a couple of years were not healthy enough to bloom. I started to draw, but could not finish it. Then one day of the early summer, this peculiar plant with a tongue, well, actually a spadix, caught my eyes in Sensory Garden at Chicago Botanic Garden. That was Green Dragon! A hybrid! I just loved the dragon tongues. So spent quite long time to compose the tongues to create good negative spaces and good relationship among the flower heads, hoods or spathes. 

Orchid, Phragmipedium 'Jason Fischer' Watercolor ©Heeyoung Kim
The rookie started a big painting! I started this one in my first watercolor class. I bought two pots from ts breeder who had given this orchid his son's name, Jason Fischer. The flowers were just adorable! In the next morning, the best flowers which I was drawing fell off! Luckily, with some research, I found out the next bud would bloom soon, and another after that and another after that..... So the blooming season would last for several months. What a monster! Well, I could finish the whole painting with fresh flowers right next to my painting table. That was easy!

Chocolate Cosmos, Cosmos atrosanguineus ©Heeyoung Kim Watercolor
Looks beautiful, and smells delicious, too! Chocolate Cosmos has reason for its name. It smells like chocolate, really! Compared with other Cosmos, this particular species is fairly small plant with astonishing flower with beautiful fragrance. Sadly, this beauty, a Mexican native, is considered as extinct in its native habitat. Never been found in nature over hundred years now. That is why I decided to paint it.  In most photos the flowers appear very dark, and very commonly people believe it is dark chocolate color. But, its common name is from its fragrance, not from its color.  Also, the sunshine did magic when I painted this. The fresh flowers showed off bright red color under strong sunshine. So I decided to give them bright red, even though I can expect there could be some different ideas about the color. My heart followed the sunshine!

Tulip, ©Heeyoung Kim Watercolor Collection of Eileen Labarre
I painted this in the first year when I studied botanical art. And this one taught me a very valuable lesson. At that time, I had no idea about botany, or what facts need to be shown in botanical paintings. I bought a pot of tulips from Sunset Foods, local grocery store, just because the color was gorgeous. I waited until they fully bloomed because I wanted to show the inside of the flowers. After some diligent work, this painting was finished. Then I figured out it needed to be identified. The tag in the pot didn't show scientific name. I contacted the store, and its provider, and even the grower. The answer was unbelievable: nobody had record of this tulip. They said as soon as a better looking hybrid is created, the older ones most likely disappear. That was quite a surprising discovery to me: a fate of a hybrid. On top of that, this particular one had seven petals, on the contrary to six in normal tulips. Another go…

Cyclamen- ©Heeyoung Kim Watercolor on Paper Collection of Gail R Harwood
Cyclamen is one of my favorite flowers, even though it is not native in Midwest. Its beauty is quite astonishing. No wonder people steal them whenever they see them in wild. As a result, they are mostly endangered in their natural habitat. Because of its popularity as a house plant, there are many varieties of hybrids available worldwide. In my first year of botanical art study, I loved to painted them.