Every Blossom Tells a Story

Arc of Apple Flora

graphite and carbon on paper

Coral Guest

Private Collection

  

The spirit of the blossom calls to the bees as

inside time the flowers bathe in beauty and

each petal smiles promising a summer fruit. 

                                          

                                                                                    
                                                                                   
                 


                                           

In the Essence of the Moment

Dessert Apple

Malus 'Ribston Pippin'

watercolour on paper

Coral Guest
private collection

The process of sketching - the artistic response to the plant in the essential moment as a living breathing now of life, the universe, and everything - releases a kind of magic. The observed and my self as the observer have no separation. Technical ability is over shadowed and leaving a record of the experience becomes the purpose of the work. Here is the infusion of particles into the image, which hold within them the frequency of the time.

So dear reader, if you are pondering on taking up the art of sketching, what are you waiting for? Never mind the outcome, simply trust in the doing of the work and enjoy it.

Flowers in the Garden

The effect of polinator friendly plants in our gardens and parks is profound. Their inclusion brings biodiversity by offering nourishment in the form of nectar and pollen for bees, hover flies, butterflies, and moths. These single blooms of native species and hybrid flowers enhance the living breathing collective song of our natural world.

                                         

                                           The Collective Song  Series 1

                                           Cosmos bipinnatus 'Purity'
                                           graphite on paper 16x12cm

                                           Coral Guest 2011
                                           private collection

Flowers in the House

Single flowers play the primary role in our gardens and parks by offering pollen and nectar to bees and other worthy insects. The hybridised double blooms that offer insects no nourishment, particularly those grown in glass houses, can seem to have lost sight of their parent species. Seemingly clinical, these flowers exist to bring us something from their esoteric nature. The message they offer is in the moment of emotion that their beauty invokes. This is the gifting of purity that reaches beyond the spoken word and is received in silence.

                                                Look Into My Eyes Series 1

                                                Florist's Carnation

                                                graphite on paper 16x14cm

                                                Coral Guest 2012

HIDDEN TREASURE extended to June 2011

Coral with the life size work of Lilium regale

The Hidden Treasure exhibition at Kew has been extended by popular demand to the 1st June 2011. See the posting of 25th August 2010. More detailed photographs of the Lilium regale on view in this show can be viewed on Coral's website:
http://www.coralguest.com/gallery/v/precision/

A Tulip Anthology by Ron Van Dongen

This exquisite new book produced by PQ Blackwell and published by Hachette brings together the remarkable photographs of tulips by Ron Van Dongen with words and artworks that the tulip flower has inspired over the last millennium. The book includes an intricate introduction by Anna Pavord. Placed on page 217 you will find my artwork Tulipa 'Blue Parrot' which is the only image of a contemporary botanical painting included in this jewell of a book. This work represents the year 2004 and is facing one of Ron Van Dongen's own monochrome photographs of the same cultivar. This anthology is sumptuous, erudite, and, kaleidoscopic in colour. Featuring a host of tulip images of all kinds, it is beautiful, with a rich depth of imagery. I have looked at this book again and again, simply because it surpasses most large format books of its kind, standing out as a classic monograph on this extraordinary species of flower that we all know so well

A Tulip Anthology by Ron Van Dongen
ISBN 978-0-7336-2654-8 Produced by PQ Blackwell

www. pqblackwell.com

The Glory of the Garden - The Field Magazine

The article The Glory of the Garden by Godfrey Barker, in the December edition of The Field magazine, is an insightful observation of the many layers pf purpose, technique, and methodology, that defines the work of contemporary botanical artists. My work is discussed several times, and insightful points are made about its place in this present Golden Age of Botanical Art, for example:

Few artists can match Coral Guest in overcoming the ugliness of greens - see her superb cheese plant watercolour from the Hinton Manor Orangery, Monstera deliciosa.

Coral Guest's portrait of Chilean bell flowers Lapageria, may be the most sheerly beautiful composition in botanical painting of our time. Guest deserves this accolade not just for the picture but for the effort put into painting it - a triumph of beauty and accuracy.