Painting plants: the best botanical illustration accounts to follow on Instagram

Botanical illustration isn’t anything new. For as long as people have been making studies of plants, they’ve been trying to make them pretty. You can lose delightful hours browsing the libraries at Kew or, if you’re lucky, the archives of the South London Botanical Institute, a time-worn relic with rooms full of plant picture books.

As tomes such Plant: Exploring the Botanical World show, we are continually striving to reshape and change how we illustrate plants, especially as we learn more about them. Turns out, this happens closer to home, too. As a fondness for fronds continues to grow around the country, life drawing classes of another nature are popping up in cafes, plant shops and green spaces, with people turning up to spend a few hours with a pencil and some artistic temperament to properly capture nature’s beauty.

Artists have been using Instagram as a means of sharing their work for a few years now, and a proliferation of greenfingered accounts has seen illustrators turned on to the potential of plants. If you appreciate art, and enjoy looking at plants, then there’s a happy Venn diagram of botanical illustration making its way to your smartphone - and it’s a lovely place to start looking for work to hang on your wall. Here are the accounts to start with:

Bukanova

Elisabeth Bukanova

Bukanova is the account of Hackney-based artist Elisabeth Bukanova, who is fascinated by the way we interact with plants and reflects that exploration in her work. Personally, I could hang nearly every considered horticultural line drawing she posts to her account on my wall and be quite happy. bukanova.com

katiekatiescott

Katie Scott

If you’ve been drawn in by the grown-up picture book Botanicum, which was published last year, then you’ll be familiar with the sumptuous work of Katie Scott. Scott, who is also based in Hackney (is there something in the water?) has lent her practice to books and fabric prints, and regularly collaborates with Kew.

Clover_robin

Clover Robin

Greenwich-based Robin’s work reminds me of Matisse’s breathtaking cut outs series. She lends a simplicity and edge to the natural world that makes it both endearing and contemporary. Plus she’s worth a follow for when she’s got a run of prints for sale.

Rach_v__h

Rachel Victoria Hillis

Illustrator Hills doesn’t just draw plants, but that’s no reason not to follow her. I love her dauby, kitchen-sink portraits that place houseplants in domestic situations. One for fans of Hockney and Sigmar Polke.

Ninasophieillustration

Nina Sophie

Berlin-based Sophie’s Instagram feed mixes shots of her life alongside her work, but there’s plenty to be found here in her delightful watercolours of a variety of plants.

For more contemporary gardening, follow Alice on Instagram.com/noughticulture