Artist Rachel Dein introduces readers for the first time to botanical bas-relief, an innovative and exciting technique developed by the author, one that anyone-gardener, parent, weekend crafter, or artist-can try at home in every season.
Casting the Garden introduces botanical bas-relief as a rewarding and simple method that encourages even the most basic beginners to revel in the ability to record a plant's texture, pattern, and delicacy in fine detail, creating compositions as small as a single stem or as complex as a field of wildflowers, leaves, and grasses. Making a botanical cast is simple: the maker rolls out a slab of clay, and then flowers and foliage are arranged and pressed onto it. Once the plants are removed, a wooden frame is placed firmly on the clay and plaster is poured in and allowed to set. Once the plaster is dry, the clay is then peeled away, and the plaster cast is pushed out of its frame, revealing a cast of the plants in all their glory. Artists can leave a finished piece bare and elegant, or experiment with painting on its surface, bringing the plants to life in color.
From small plaster tiles featuring a single flower portrait to large panels that suggest an entire garden full of blooms, botanical castings reflect every gardener and artist's desire to capture the ephemeral in nature. A meditative activity that encourages artists to explore their gardens and natural spaces for materials, botanical bas-relief teaches readers how to track the progress of the seasons, immortalizing the plants at the moment when they are most alive. Like a fossil of long forgotten flowers, each finished cast is a vestige of time and an act of remembering: a summer day in the garden, a perfect magnolia at its peak, a wedding bouquet to last forever, or a memory of the first daffodils in spring.
With accessible instructions, stunning photography of the process from start to finish, and insights into the artist's own garden where she forages for inspiration, readers will discover:
• Step-by-step guidance on the tools and equipment needed to set up a simple workspace
• What plants work best in botanical casts, and which to avoid
• How to arrange flowers and stems to make well balanced artistic compositions
• Tips on creating unique pieces of artwork as mementos of a season or records of special occasions
Rachel Dein studied Fine Art at Middlesex University, then trained as a prop maker for the English National Opera and worked as a freelancer for 15 years at numerous theatres and museums, including Madame Tussauds, the Royal Opera House and Shakespeare's Globe in London. Throughout this time Dein continued to work on personal art projects. Having stopped freelancing to look after her three young children, she began casting small plaster tiles in her studio at home. Dein exhibited at a local gallery and immediately began getting commissions for her botanical bas-reliefs. Her art has been published in Elle Decoration, House & Garden, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Gardens Illustrated, Period Living, Country Life, The Daily Telegraph, Martha Stewart Living, The Irish Times and Gardenista. Recent books that feature her work include In Bloom, Cast and The Botanical Bible. Previous exhibitions include: The Cambridge Darkroom Gallery, Ben Uri Gallery, Hampstead School of Art and the Aga Khan Centre Gallery. Rachel has exhibited at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London for almost a decade. She was artist-in-residence for the National Trust's Hidcote Manor Gardens 2018-19 and Nunnington Hall 2022-23. Her website is www.racheldein.com. Whether in small tiles with a single flower portrait or large panels that suggest an entire garden full of blooms, Rachel Dein's botanical castings reflect her desire to capture the ephemeral. They track the progress of the seasons, marking the plants at the moment when they are most alive. It is as if she has distilled t
