Wednesday 29 June 2011

The Meconopsis

Several years ago Dr Evelyn Stevens, co-founder of the Meconopsis Group, gifted me some seeds for a cross pollination experiment. I raised a fairly large number of Meconopsis plants but far too many for my small garden, so passed on a number to the Cruickshank Botanic Garden at the University of Aberdeen, keeping just a small number at home. I've been trying to get around to painting them for the past 3 years - a few weeks ago I finally made a start, although in fairness it had taken 3 years prior to this to produce any flowers and some still refuse to flower! Anyway so much time has passed that one of the plants has recently been reclassified! (see description below)
Here is just one of the preparatory watercolours towards the series of Meconopsis paintings. They're quite tricky because the colour of the petals changes so quickly with age. The final pieces will probably be painted on vellum.....but that will have to wait until next year.



Meconopsis baileyi
Discovered in 1913 by Col. F.M. Bailey in Rong Chu, SE Tibet, the Tibetan blue poppy was named Meconopsis baileyi in 1915 from a herbarium specimen. Ten years after Col Bailey's discovery, Frank Kingdon Ward collected substantial samples of herbarium material and seeds from the same area. From this seed M. baileyi, or Bailey's blue poppy, was introduced into western gardens.
 
However,  it was discovered that a similar plant had been previously been discovered, in 1886, by Pere Delavay in NW Yunnan. This plant was described and named, M. Betonicifolia in 1889. It was not introduced into cultivation. When George Taylor published his monograph of the genus in 1934, he maintained that the two taxa, were conspecific, therefore the name M. betonicifolia had priority having been published at the earlier date, thus, M. baileyi became a synonym.

In June 2009, Dr Chris Grey-Wilson, of Kew,  published a paper in The Alpine Gardener which identified more than 8 distinct features that justify separation of the two taxa, as a result the original two species were reinstated. M. betonicifolia endemic to NW Yunnan and M. baileyi endemic to SE Tibet. You can read more about the history and classification on the Meconopsis Group website.

Saturday 25 June 2011

More leaves exhibited in Scotland, McEwan Gallery

Painting has resumed again after a few glitches. The problem at this time of year is that there are just too many plants to choose from and not enough time to paint them. It's hard to decide what to do first and the end result always seems to be that I attempt too many pieces and flit from one thing to another, finishing only one or two. Every year I decide to be more organised..... 

Now with all this choice and such a limited season it seems ridiculous to be painting dead leaves but that's what I've been doing. This behaviour was inspired by my recent purchase of the exhibition catalogue from Rory McEwen's 1988 retrospective 'Rory McEwen 1932-1982, The Botanical Paintings' - it has 24 colour plates of his works including some of his incredible leaves, there are still a few copies around through book dealers for those willing to search for it. This mahonia leaf was my latest challenge and caused me to abandon the poor Meconopsis that I've been promising to paint for 3 years! Below are some of the other dead leaves completed over the past year..... I'll finish the meconopsis next week.I do love leaves!


Mahonia on vellum 6 x 4
Horse chestnut on vellum 10 x 12
Maple on vellum 8 x 10
Beech on vellum 6 x 4 ( not exhibited at the McEwan) a gift for my lovely boss when I left the Council's education dept after 4 years
Cherry on vellum 6 x 4
Copper beech with skeleton 4 x 7
All of the leaves are on vellum, most of these these were exhibited and sold at the McEwan Gallery, Ballater. I've been exhibiting there since I moved to Scotland around  1989! It's a lovely gallery in a beautiful surrounding