Botanical Illustrations is a six-week workshop dedicated to our plant and nature lovers. Inspired by the Pollinator Garden at Scarborough Arts, course instructor Marjan Verstappen teaches you each step of her creative process in making botanical illustrations with watercolours, pencil, and pen. 

Explore plants through fresh eyes! Learn to develop your observational drawing skills, but also to enjoy a greater awareness of the natural world by learning how to pay close attention to details in nature. Learn to apply light and shadow to add extra volume to your illustrations, discover new ways to identify geometric shapes of different plants and flowers so they’re easier to draw. With each session, learn a different range of artistic techniques to craft beautiful illustrations!

About the Instructor

Marjan Verstappen is a visual artist and art educator. She specializes in teaching realistic techniques in drawing, painting and sculpture. In her teaching, she loves to share her enthusiasm for the beauty in everyday life, and strives to help her students discover it through their art. Her professional visual art practice involves painting, sculpture and photography. Notable exhibitions of her artwork include Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood (Art Gallery of Ontario), INSTRUMENTA II (National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta) Atlas of Nowhere (Ashburton Art Gallery, New Zealand) and Know The Ways (Flux Factory, NYC). Marjan grew up in New Zealand and moved to Canada in 2012.

This program is generously funded by the J.P. Bickell Foundation General Charities Grant and Delta Bingo & Gaming. This program will be capped at 20 participants, who will be receiving an art kit with painting and sketch materials. This will be a hybrid program and will be hosted both in-person and online, based on public health measures.