2011 Colour and contemporary digital botanical illustration

Optics & Laser Technology

Volume 43, Issue 2, March 2011, Pages 330–336

Colour and Design II: Colour in plants and animals - Inspiration for Design

Colour and contemporary digital botanical illustration

• Niki Simpson^{1, 2, ,}

Available online 10 February 2009

doi:10.1016/j.optlastec.2008.12.014

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Abstract

Colour can simply be an attribute of a plant, but for scientific identification purposes, colour can also be diagnostic, distinguishing, or helping to distinguish, a plant from an otherwise similar species or cultivar. Hence the accurate recording of colour has been a feature of botanical illustration since its beginnings. New digital composite botanical illustrations, based largely on photography, can include far more colour information about a plant, both in terms of quantity and quality, than is possible by more traditional methods of colour description. Furthermore such digital composite illustrations allow a significant advance in the communication of such colour data.

Keywords

• Digital botanical art;
• Colour key;
• Plant recording

1

During the 2 day conference, 20 digital composite illustrations by the author were on display in the library at the Linnean Society; 10 were of deciduous trees displaying autumn colour and 10 were of various poisonous plants.

2

For copies of the RHS Colour Chart, see http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/publications/pubs_library_colourchart.asp

Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.