Profile

Prionotes for websiteLeonie is a practicing and exhibiting professional botanical artist, one of Australia’s most prominent and highly qualified botanical educators and a leading artist in her field. She is also an international tutor of high regard and demand.  Leonie is past President and Lifetime Member of the Botanical Art Society of Australia and the Florilegium Society at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.

Qualifications

Leonie’s  qualifications include BA/Visual Arts degree, B.Fine Arts ( BFA Honours) in Plant and Wildlife Illustration, post graduate degree (Grad Dip) in Adult Education (Vocational Education and Training) and Cert IV in Assessment and Workplace Training. She has been an International External Examiner for Botanical Art Certificate courses in the USA and is also involved in selection and judging for Australian botanical art exhibitions.

Collections and Awards

She has won the Maitland Art Gallery Prize for Plant and Wildlife Illustration as well as many other art awards at various exhibitions. Her botanical paintings can be found in private and public collections, both in Australia and overseas. The prestigious Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation in the USA has purchased two of Leonie’s Australian native plant paintings for their permanent Collection.

Tuition

She teaches courses and workshops in Sydney and throughout Australia, which include Hobart Tasmania, Perth WA, Brisbane Queensland and other regional locations There are regular workshops in Bali and Fiji, and previously in New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. Leonie is the only Australian botanical tutor who has been invited to teach at the renowned Marlborough College in England as well as in Canada. She has also taught botanical art field techniques at Macquarie University in the Department of Environment and Geography and has workshops at the Canberra Botanical Gardens.

Leonie runs an Online Botanical Art Course, which includes comprehensive video tutorials for each course Module. 

Art Tours

The overseas art tours are holidays with guided tours to various locations, combined with intensive botanical art tuition. These destinations currently include Fiji and Bali, with more exciting destinations planned for the future.

Exhibitions & Judging

Both the Canberra Botanical Gardens and the Botanical Art Society of Australia have invited Leonie to be a guest artist for their exhibitions. She has successfully exhibited at the Botanica exhibition at the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens since its inception and also the annual exhibitions  of the Botanical Art Society of Australia.

Leonie has been involved in selection for many exhibitions, as well as having been an International Examiner for Botanical Art Diploma courses in the United States. She has judged exhibitions in Sydney,  as well as for the prestigious Worldwide Botanical Art Exhibition which was held in Canberra, and the Botanical Art Society of Australia.

Publications

Magazine publications include regular articles in Artists Palette since 2001, Back to Basics Magazine (each issue), Artists Drawing and Inspiration and Australian Artist. Our Gardens Magazine, Queensland Homes and various local newspaper publications have also featured Leonie’s work. Botanical herbs, illustrated by Leonie were in each issue of Nature & Health Magazine from 2005-2011.

She was commissioned to paint 14 rare and endangered Australian native plants which are found in the south-west of Western Australia. The historical significance of these plants is they are still identified with the 1820s  renowned plant collector William Baxter.

Her book ‘Women of Flowers: Botanical Art in Australia from the 1830s – 1960s’ is available  leading book stores. These can be accessed through Google.

As a balance in her life, Leonie also teaches Holiday Sketching, and takes art groups to places such as Fiji, Vietnam, Bali, New Zealand, Hobart Tasmania, Norfolk Island, Borneo and Cambodia.