Julia talks about her creative process, working with paper and paint, and finding beauty in the overlooked details of home and harvest. A reflection on slowness, craft and seeing afresh.

With our upcoming bird of prey painting course, we return to this subject not only through practice, but through its lineage in art. Alongside working from life, we trace how artists across centuries have approached the raptor, from the precision of early natural history to the charged atmospheres of Romantic painting and the distilled forms of modernism. It offers a way of situating your own work within a longer tradition, understanding not just how to paint the bird, but how it has been seen, interpreted and reimagined over time.

In Clare Mahoney’s work, fragility and resilience are held in careful tension. Through botanical casting and porcelain, delicate natural forms are translated into objects of quiet strength — inviting us to slow down, look closely, and make with attention.

Botanical casting sits at the meeting point of science and craft, translating fleeting plant forms into enduring plaster reliefs. From ancient traditions to contemporary practice, the article traces a quiet lineage of observation, material exchange and making. At Asterion & Co., this history continues through hands-on workshops that invite close looking, patience and care.

Botanical illustrator and card designer Kate Charlton brings her painter’s eye and florist’s sensitivity to every petal she paints. From her Somerset studio to The Old Vicarage in Leigh-on-Mendip, she shares how emotion, craftsmanship, and quiet confidence shape her work — and her upcoming Asterion & Co. Christmas Card Course.