HOLLY WARD BIMBA
aka GOLLY BARD
It’s time for another part in the series “Beauty will save the world” (read about this quote and the man behind it HERE). In these posts I want to share the artwork of some artists that have had a big influence on my desire to reconnect with the joy of painting and drawing after years of putting my creative side on a back burner. Discovering these wonderful artists was such an inspiration to me and each one has a special “thing” that I would love to learn from. With Holly Ward Bimba you just fall in awe over her exquisite, detailed watercolours painted with a sensitivity that makes her motifs from nature totally enchanting! I just love this! And I could never do it! Every time I see a new piece I’m amazed. The mix of botanical knowledge and naivety (meaning playfulness and imagination) is so perfect and you can immediately sense the love she has for nature. Her style is unmistakably her own, what you would call a signature style.
Her blog is called Golly Bard’s Drawingroom and this is a room you want to be invited to! And you are, just head over to her blog and she will share her work in progress, adventures in nature and other funny stories with you. She explains the name being a childhood nickname that she now uses lovingly as a nom de plume. She has a BFA in the fine art of printmaking, papermaking and book arts but her favourite mediums are watercolour and gouache. Living in the countryside of Virginia, long walks provide her with all the inspiration she needs for her artwork. Well, not entirely – oftentimes she brings nature indoors to study it in detail – like breeding butterflies at home, documenting all their development stages! But it’s not only about celebrating life – there’s a sublime beauty even after death that she captures in her very unique way. Her still lifes of dead animals make us aware of the cycle of life and death in nature and how this can be depicted in new, unexpected ways.
Last year she published a book called Drawn to Nature – A Sketchbook for the Naturalist and before that she illustrated another great one, The Wildlife-friendly Vegetable Gardener – How to Grow Food in Harmony with Nature written by Tammi Hartung.
Want more? Of course you do! You will find her here:
Don’t miss Holly and her wild friends in her magical world of natural history, old gardens, botanical adventures, and other curiosities.
All copyrights of the pictures belong to the artist Holly Ward Bimba http://www.gollybard.com/
Thank you so much! You are too kind!
It’s a pleasure to display such beautiful work!