Kew Gardens Art Trip

Art at Kew Gardens

A Level Art students travel to Kew Gardens to gain inspiration from the most biodiverse place on Earth.

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n September, A Level Art students visited Kew Gardens, a word-leading diverse botanic garden, full of the most amazing plants and fungi.

The aim was for students to draw inspiration from the art of nature, as well as to experiment with various art techniques, styles and methods. The Art Department kindly provided us with a wide variety of papers as well as numerous art materials to draw with. We began with a few ‘warm up’ activities. These consisted of us using any type of media we wished to draw the outside of one of the magnificent iron and glass tropical greenhouses. In another activity we were allowed to use any part of our exhilarating surroundings to encourage our artistic creativity. Mrs Deamer, Mrs Hobbs and Mr Turner gave us a time limit of one minute to sketch our chosen muse from memory!

We also challenged ourselves and expanded our skills by drawing with our non-dominant hand, not only in pencil but also in ink. Later we took rubbings from numerous sites within the hundreds of acres.

Before photography the only way to capture the botanical rainbow of the natural world was through art. Throughout the day, we were constantly learning new and unique techniques to enhance our own drawings and to gain more creative freedom.

Fortunately, it didn’t rain, and a good time was had by everyone!

Keya Patel L6 RS