Home

The Jill Smythies Award given for digitally created botanical illustrations

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Niki under Uncategorized

  It has been a very busy time of year for the botanical art world, both in the UK and around the world, and it has also been a quietly interesting one. I am delighted to write that at the Anniversary Meeting of the Linnean Society of London on May 24th, I received The Jill Smythies […]

Botanical Beauty Exhibition

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Niki under Uncategorized

  Last night was the Private View for the new Botanical Beauty exhibition opening in the Riverside Gallery in Richmond. There are two rooms packed full of botanical art – nearly all are paintings, but happily mine was not the only digital print. It was good to meet up with other botanical artists and see the variety of […]

Season’s greetings to all

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

  SEASON’S  GREETINGS If you haven’t found it already, take a look at Advent Botany 2016, which is a Christmas countdown of festive botanical facts. This is the third year it has been compiled, and above is the Christmas banner I made for this year’s version. Wishing you all health and happiness for 2017.  

Plant – exploring the botanical world

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

Plant – Exploring the Botanical World New book by Phaidon editors, with an introduction by James Compton Published by Phaidon, September 2016 Phaidon has just published a beautiful new book entitled ‘Plant: Exploring the Botanical World’. According to the dust jacket, this book includes “over 300 outstanding botanical works of art from throughout history“, so […]

New book is published!

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

Nuphar lutea – new book by Niki Simpson I am delighted to report that on 25th May 2016 my new book was published!! Nuphar lutea – botanical images for the digital documentation of a taxon The ISBN number is: 978-0-9554917-1-9 If you are interested in purchasing a copy or have questions about it please email me – though I hope […]

Creating a new botanical illustration book!!

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

  I have been quiet on the blogging front for a while, but I have been very busy… Since January I have been working hard on putting together a new book about scientific botanical illustration and, very excitingly, the proof copy arrived this week! It is to be a beautiful large, square format, coffee-table style book. I will post […]

8. Lasting impressions – thoughts on the permanence of record

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

I am often asked by botanical painters about my view on the permanence of digital work, and in particular, the transience of my botanical plates. I am repeatedly presented with tales of disaster scenarios where hardware and/or software upgrading has led to loss of data or the inability to read data. I am aware that this […]

7. Re-compositon: flexibility for multi-purpose use

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

In number 5 of my explanations, I demonstrated one example of the inherent flexibility of these images, by showing one of my ‘standard’ composite portraits simply re-arranged to fit a horizontal format of the same size. If you look back, you can see that both versions contained the same plant parts and that all the parts were shown at the […]

GSBI – Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

Last week I headed west to meet the members of the Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration, having been invited as Guest Speaker at their AGM meeting. It was held at the splendid Gambier Parry Hall in Highnam, just outside Gloucester – and just along the road from the Nature in Art Gallery at Twigworth, where the GSBI holds […]

6. Plant parts – building up an image library

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Niki under Uncategorized

  Last year I started a series of posts in which I try explain my digital botanical illustrations – to show how they can (and could be) used and demonstrate, to artists and botanists alike, the benefits of using the digital medium. So now it’s for time to get back to where I left off last year! As my composite illustrations are largely made […]