Blossoms and Bugs: Drawing and Painting Botanicals and Insects

Thursdays from 1 - 4 PM

March: 5, 12, 19, 26 | April: 2, 9

An Art Workshop with Honey Dean

$260 for Not-Yet Members

$240 for Members (difference refunded after purchase)

Presented by botanical artist and natural science illustrator Honey Dean, this workshop will cover the basic skills of drawing and watercolor as applied to traditional scientifically-accurate representations of flowers, foliage, and insects.

Students can expect to work with live specimens (except for some of the bugs, perhaps) as models and will complete the class having produced several small drawings and paintings in graphite, ink, and watercolor. Students of all ages and levels of training in art are welcome to participate.

Art supplies for the class will be furnished by the instructor, with cost included in the workshop fees. The Mobile Botanical Gardens will provide the blossoms and bugs.

A Brief Biography of Janice Neill “Honey” Dean:

Honey Dean is a botanical artist and natural science illustrator who resides in Lucedale, Mississippi. Originally from the Mississippi Delta, Honey was trained in art at the University of Mississippi, graduating with an extended major in art and an additional major in English. It was the English degree that provided her livelihood—as her college advisor suggested, “Artists have a hard time making a living, but every town needs English teachers.” This proved to be true, and an advanced degree in English and a doctorate in Education furthered her career as a teacher, principal, and college professor. Art was her passion throughout, and she brought the Arts in Education program into several elementary schools in Greenville, Mississippi. She always created art herself, participated in several art groups in the Delta, Jackson, and Fairhope, Alabama area, co-owned The Studio, a frame shop and gallery, with her sculptor husband, Michael Dean, and showed her work at exhibits and galleries throughout the South. Honey has since retired from education and her art associations, but she continues to paint and occasionally enters art shows. Her home in Lucedale, The Honeycomb, serves as her studio and gallery. Her motto comes from an old tombstone in England: “The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things, their colors, lights, and shades. These I saw; look ye also while life lasts.”