A charity which hopes to revive wood culture has appointed an artist in residence to work on illustrations for a new book which it hopes will raise funds for the charity.

The Sylva Foundation appointed fine artist, Sarah Simblet, at the beginning of January 2012 to co-write The New Sylva with chief executive Gabriel Hemery.

They have secured a book deal with Bloomsbury to write the book about trees and forestry and have also started a blog charting the progress of The New Sylva. The book will be published in 2014 to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the publication Sylva by John Evelyn.

Hemery said: “I realised that in 2014 it will be 350 years since Evelyn published his seminal book on tree and forestry. I though it would be a wonderful promotional activity for our charity, which takes inspiration from Evelyn’s book, to produce a contemporary version.”

The Sylva Foundation formed in 2009 and hopes to revive wood culture. Sylva is the Greek word for woods and forests and was the title of Evelyn’s book which was the first ever book published by the Royal Society in 1664.

Most of the proceeds for the book will go to the foundation and the charity also hopes to auction single edition copies of the drawings.