Student stories and testimonials

Student Stories - This part of the website is being updated look out for new student stories soon

There have been some great success stories with students, with work accepted into internationals, such as ASAB, Membership of Societies achieved, such as the SBA, work accepted into RBGE Florilegium by two current students and one even succeeded in having work accepted into the Margaret Flockton in 2021. Several have gone on to be accepted by the RHS for exhibiting and one is currently exhibiting th the Shirley Sherwood Gallery as part of the ABBA digital exhibition. I have even more exciting news of student stories for the near future in their words.

This page features the stories and work by former students. The first is written by Marina Voznyuk from the Ukraine. Marina completed the Botanical illustration Course in August 2017.

Marina Voznyuk

When I started the Botanical Illustration Course with Dianne Sutherland I had just a small experience in watercolour. The course was very informative for me, the continuous tone technique which I was not familiar before, all the exercises and especially composition part together with final assignment. I chose Cyclamen persicum for my graphite work and the composition was quite difficult because of many flowers and leaves.

At the time when I was doing exercises for watercolour part of the course I got to know about the ASBA initiative Botanical Art Worldwide project. Each of the participating countries illustrated their native plants. I had enough courage to email them with the intention to organize our exhibition in Ukraine as the part of this project. So my choice of the plant for the Final assignment for the course was Rosa canina as it’s a native plant for my country and lately it took part in the exhibition.

Dianne gave us so much information not only in course materials but also in our closed group where the students share their work and get the answers on endless questions. I feel that if not Dianne’s clever advices and all the information she gave I would not organize such significant exhibition among 25 participating countries: Flora of Ukraine, Botanical Art Worldwide, May 2018, in the National Botanical Garden in Kyiv. Also my work Sorbus aucuparia was chosen for Ukraine’s page in Irish and American catalogs, as these two countries were publishing books with all the participating countries.'

Marina Vozynuk

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