Today I spent five hours at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens. Five. Hours. Exploring almost, if not all of the grounds. Starting in the Palm House Parterre which must’ve been at least 80 degrees and extremely humid for all of the plants which require that type of climate. It was interesting the way they positioned all of them, categorized by the country they originate from. The house was filled with life, literally to the brim! From the outside you could see leaves pressing against all of the windows high, high up in the building. There was a plant that if you ran your finger along it, all of it’s leaves closed up as if it was scared/hiding! I’ve never seen anything like that before.
Making our way over to the Woodland area we took an elevator to the Treetop walkway. It was a little scary but good thing I’m short, the railing was almost as tall as me which helped with my minor fear of heights. Discovering a manmade log path was one of my favorite parts of the whole garden! The logs had stairs carved into them along with foot holes and even the type of tree they were. A long line of them created a path which made it so fun to jump from log to log.
Through the redwood forests… Please tell me you sang that in your head like I did ALL day after I spotted them. Well, anyways, if you’ve never seen redwood trees, they’re GIANT and beautiful.
Regina also talked about her process when it comes to her botanical artwork which was so interesting because as a graphic design professor we don’t often hear her talk about that topic much. She inspired me to get back into painting a little, by saying that becoming a graphic designer and focusing on the details (i.e. kerning and space around the letter) made her a better illustrator and painter in the long run.
The rest of the day myself along with a few friends explored the Covent Garden area where we watched many street performers who always mange to get a few dollars from me! Always helping out the starving artists ;). Tomorrow is the Hackathon, which after a conference call with a representative this morning, I am feeling much better about. It should be fun, and creatively inspiring!!
To end the blog, here are a few of my favorite pictures from today:
