Spring is around the corner and Les Beaux Arts Gallery is pleased to usher it in with "Spring Notebook," a new collection of Heather Sandifer's botanical monotypes and assemblages. Appropriately, the exhibition will open on Easter Sunday, March 31st and run through Thursday, April 25, 2013.   Sandifer's work features some color-brushed tulip blossoms and bird nests – she calls them the original Easter baskets. As for her botanical monotypes, they include spring ferns and other plant life. The assemblages are three-dimensional elements in which construction assumes major importance. The emphasis of the show is on the color green; emerging shoots, bright blooms and bird eggs.   Ms. Sandifer's first botanical paintings relied on the herbarium preservation method, which consists of pressing and drying natural plants. However, the fragility of the plants forced her to create a new kind of monotype that combines her knowledge of art with the herbarium preservation methods. "It takes thirty steps to complete s single piece," she explains, "starting with pressing the plant material to administering the layers of color and employing frottage to transfer the impression. The dual process demonstrates not only the beauty of the leaf's impression but also its inherent strength and resiliency." Each piece is one of a kind and there is no duplication. Sandifer had a long career as a textile designer before going into fine art botanical paintings. She holds a certificate in botanical art and illustration from the New York Botanical Garden. Her work has been featured at several venues including Holly Hunt, Chicago, Winter Works on Paper, New York, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, and the Flinn and Bendheim galleries of Greenwich. Spring Notebook, a new collection of botanical monotypes and assemblages by Heather Sandifer, will open at Les Beaux Arts Gallery on Easter Sunday, March 31, and run through Thursday, April 25. The Gallery is located in the Round Hill Community Church, 395 Round Hill Road, Greenwich. Gallery hours are Sunday, 11a.m. to Noon; Monday thru Friday, 9am – 3pm; closed Saturday. For more information about Spring Notebook or Les Beaux Arts Gallery, call 203/869-1091 or visit www.roundhillcommunitychurch.org