Botanical Artists, 30 Day Leaf Challenge

On October the 1st I started a challenge - to paint 30 leaves in 30 days! The task was set by botanical artist and illustrator Mindy Lighthipe via the Facebook Botanical Artists Group.  It all started when Mindy was invited to be the guest artist for the new Botanical Artists blog. Mindy wrote about her previous experience of a similar task and invited other artists to join her in a  new 30/30 challenge- so I decided to give it a go!


I have chosen to paint leaves given to me by friends and family or from places that I have some personal connection with.

Last week I visited my home town in Staffordshire and collected leaves from a number of locations including the Trentham Gardens  estate- it was the first time I had visited the beautiful gardens since I was a child.

Here's the first leaf. It's from an enormous Acer cappadocium at Trentham Gardens which the estate manager estimates dates back to the1840's.

I'll be posting my leaves at the end of each week for the remainder of the challenge.