meeting at powell gardens

last summer, i drove on a bus trip to powell gardens, about 25 miles east of kansas city on highway 50, and found that it was a lovely place that i would like to take jerry back to at some point. i also stated on one of my groups that focuses on botanical artwork that it would be great if some of us could meet up there for a sketchcrawl or if cynthia padilla, the list owner, could come here and teach a class. i guess cynthia got online, checked out powell gardens, and decided it would be a place where she could teach some classes on creating authentic botanical art.

about 2 weeks before her scheduled classes to teach at powell gardens, she announced on our list that she would be in the area and would love to have anyone from the list come to her classes or drop in and meet her. i would've loved to have gone to the class, but i just couldn't afford it on that short notice -- so i settled for traveling there while she was there so i could meet her and jerry and i could explore the gardens.

here is a picture of cynthia and me together in the beautiful atrium area as the garden areas begins. i had stepped into the class she was teaching when i first got there, but she was busy explaining a process and all the students gathered around her so i didn't want to intrude. i just wrote a note and left for her that said, "jill was here. i'll be back after while to say 'hi'." she was looking for me before i got back, but i didn't want to interfere w/ her class time. we scheduled it just about right to arrive back in the main building about 30 minutes before her class was over, so students were very busy trying the techniques that they had learned and were trying to get finished up on things before departing.

here is a picture of cynthia rearranging a plant so a student could get a better view of the part needed to draw. cynthia gave many important details during the class to make the sketching/drawing go much easier, and one of those was to not try to draw the plant while looking at it straight on. looking from an angle usually provided a much better drawing view.

here, cynthia is working w/ her student (marsha) and showing her a technique on getting the right look at the right angle. sometimes it just takes having someone point out another technique or assure the student that it can be done a certain way and it's okay to use that method.

after the day of class time for these students (who had not taken art classes before), they were hanging up their works of art and some of these were absolutely amazing. throughout the class, the learned new techniques, heard new ideas, tried new things and probably felt the class was a great overall success.

if you want more information on taking a class from cynthia padilla, you can contact her at botanicalart@ev1.net. she told me that she'll be back to powell gardens to teach more classes in april, 2007, and i intend to be there to take one. meeting cynthia was a fun experience and it's so neat to meet the person and put a face to the "personality online".

if you want to explore Powell Gardens more to see if you want to make the trip there, it's well worth your time and effort.