Biography Margaret Saul Creative Australian botanical artist and teacher

Margaret Saul

Born in Australia of artist parents and a mother who was also a high school art teacher, Margaret Saul has art in her veins! Currently living in the USA, Margaret is a botanical artist and illustrator interested in natural history who has worked in this field of art since 1976. Her work is represented in private and public collections around the world and in numerous science and art publications. Four of her paintings are included in the prestigious collection of contemporary botanical art owned by Dr. Shirley Sherwood, for whom she has presented master classes at Orient-Express Hotels. Margaret’s paintings are also published in three art books dealing specifically with botanical art. She is the director of the “Brookside Gardens School of Botanical Art & Illustration” at McCrillis Gardens, Maryland USA and regularly teaches Master Classes in the USA and Australia.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT:

All plants intrigue me though only certain types will initiate the creative activity that energizes the whole process – recording botanical detail through which I can discover further fascinating form, shape, pattern and color; composing the picture; applying media and rendering wonderful detail. I feel there is a particular need to create works that heighten awareness of native flora - no matter where in the world I live. My eye is especially drawn to rounded form, and finds great satisfaction in seeing harmony and contrast, aspects of light, fluidity of line and harmonious movement while the desire to seek the how & why also beckons. Such inquisitiveness leads to periods of discovery through observational drawing. The challenge continually presenting itself is not to allow the objectivity to destroy the art – nor for the art to cloud the truth that we seek through science.

Favoured Media: Watercolour and dry-colour pencils

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