“From garden to drawing, from drawing to book, plants are my source of inspiration!”

After years spent in regular contact with dancers, Raphaèle Bernard-Bacot has found new inspiration in gardens and travelling. She has created a set of drawings called Fruits dansés (Fruit Dances). In 2017 she had her sketchbook published by Glénat : The Royal Vegetable Garden of Versailles, Seasons drawn in Versailles (Le Potager du Roi, dessins de saison). In 2020 her second book City Gardeners, Portraits Sketched On The Spot (Jardiniers des villes, portraits croqués sur le vif) has been published by Rue de L’Echiquier. His third book, Allotment gardens, tomorrow gardens – A drawn walk (Jardins ouvriers, jardins de demain – Promenade dessinée), published by Cours Toujours, came out in 2023.
She is interested by the relationship between human and nature and draws all types of gardens from allotments to remarkable gardens open to the public. She invites people through nomadics workshops to learn how to sketch on the spot and especially how to see in a different way.
But why do people speak of “nature morte” (dead nature) in French, or “still life” in English? If you pick up a plant from the ground and really look at it, from the roots to the leaves, there is nothing dead, or even still, in the forms, or the colours, there is nothing but life! As with dance.
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