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Janie Pirie SBA GM
Biography
Janie was born in Buckinghamshire and spent much of her childhood painting plants in her father’s garden. After two years at Northampton School of Art and a brief (unhappy) spell teaching in a primary school she moved to London where she worked in advertising.
Marriage, a family and a few years living in the Middle East came next before she started work for a local newspaper group where she created display advertisements. A further two years studying fine art at Colchester Art School followed and her career as an artist began to take shape. Although she then spent 20 years working in Marketing and Public Relations she also took many commissions for magazine and book illustrations. However, the pull of illustrating flowers, plants and vegetables from her garden became very strong so she gave up working for others and concentrated on her art.
A chance accident in her garden – nothing major – she just knocked a branch off a red currant bush – gave her the idea of drawing in a botanical style. Although she mostly used watercolour or acrylic in the past she was introduced to coloured pencils whilst at Colchester Art School and it was with these that the red currants and other soft fruits were drawn. Janie soon realised that with ‘modern’ pencils a picture could be ‘painted’ – blending the colours on the paper rather than in the palette.
In the past two years she has achieved full membership of the Society of Botanical Artists and was awarded an RHS gold medal at the Botanical Art Exhibition during the BBC Gardener’s World Live Exhibition at the NEC in June 2009. She was also awarded the title ‘Best Botanical Artists in Show 2009’ by the RHS during the same show.
Janie now runs workshops from her garden studio, has run a three-day course at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and will be doing more next year, workshops at The Beth Chatto Gardens and will be teaching at Flatford Mill later this year and next year. She also visits art groups all over the country to demonstrate the exciting world of coloured pencils.