British Wildflowers Exhibition: Easton Walled Gardens 2020

Before the country went into lockdown, I participated in a small exhibition of British flowering plants at Easton Walled Gardens, Grantham. My intention was to publish this short piece at the time of the exhibition but between flooding and pandemics I kind of forgot and never finished this post. So, several weeks after the event here it is. I've chosen just a few of the 14 works works to discuss the stories behind the paintings..... there are so many more that I wanted to paint. I suspect this may be the last exhibition I'll be participating in for a while but looking on the bright side, now is the time to paint!
My daughter Polly and good friend Dawn Wright also took part in the exhibition. For my part, all of my works were on vellum, here's a small selection. I'll add a slideshow later of all my works.

Scottish Bluebell orHarebell, Campanula rotundifolia (Campanulaceae) on Kelmscott vellum. I found this plant growing in a wall in Grantown on Spey in NE Scotland. it was hanging on to the wall by a little tuft of moss that must have been retaining enough moisture for life support(see below). I've always loved this flower ever since I first set eyes on it when I arrived in Scotland in the late 1980's. The little bells nodded at the roadside as we drove by and I can recall stopping to see it. Its a difficult colour to achieve on vellum because of the creamy colour of the substrate. Cobalt blue with a touch of quinacridone magenta was the key ingredient. I'm now growing from seed for the garden this year. 

It's surprising what a bit of moss will support! The Scottish Bluebell is quite long flowering plant, it provides food of pollinating bees after many other summer flowers have bloomed. There is a strong association with hares and these flowers, hence the name, it was believed in folklore, that witches transformed into hares, using the flowers in spells for their transformation.  Many people also believed fairies lived in patches of harebells and if you happened to walk through such a patch, this could result in the fairies casting a spell, which is why it's also known as Dead Man's Bells! This painting seemed to take forever, painting on vellum is a slow process at the best of times but has the added benefit of paint being  easily removed if it's not going to plant....as a result some days, I ended up with less than I started with.

The harebell flowers are so small, papery and delicate to paint it was a real challenge, so I decided to paint a larger version of just one flower. I wouldn't normally do this but it seemed like I needed a closer view of these little flowers and it made a nice addition to the painting of the whole plant.

Carfully adding soft layers of colour, larger areas of colour are more difficult on vellum because its's easy to lift the previous layer if too much water is used, dry brush work is essential.

Scaled up flower x3 on Kelmscott, almost finished

The second subject is also from Scotland, Linnaea borealis, the Twinflower, I've written a blog about this one before, but here are the little paintings.  This is one of out smallest flowers,  so a again I painted a larger study of the flowers. The Twinflower is in the Caprifoliaceae family, better know for Honeysuckle, which seems slightly surprising. It's a creeping plant that forms giant clonal mats of flowers as shown in the video below. It was a favourite of Carl Linnaeus and was named after him. It's and is found boreal pine forests, hence the second part of the name, it can also be found in birch and heather but needs sufficient shade to do well. It occurs in many other northern hemisphere countries, where it is abundant but in Scotland it is rare and associated with the remnants of the old Caledonian pine forests.

Beginnings using the sketchbook studies made in Scotland

The Twinflower painting is on goatskin Kelmscott which is mounted on a heavyweight board prepared by William Cowley, the only remaining vellum maker in the UK. I wanted to show this plant in its simplest form, showing the tiny twin headed flowers and creeping stems and tiny toothed leaves. In the UK this flower is only found in Scotland. It has had a difficult time existing with humans, land clearance up to the 1930's meant that populations of the plants became too isolated for pollinators to cross-pollinate, as a result the population was reduced to around 50 sites and the genetic diversity reduced. Looking at the video you might think it's a healthy population but the plant is actually a giant clone which makes it vulnerable. To add to the challenge of survival,  it only produces one seed per flower, so should any disease or environmental change occur the entire clone will could be lost. Scottish Natural Heritage and Plant Life have been working to reintroduce the plant and the good news is that it's working but is an ongoing challenge.  

Enlarged study of single flower stem on Kelmscott vellum, with the characteristic two nodding bell flowers ( x2.5). The plant is covered in small sticky hairs and when the single seed develops it is also covered in these hairs,  the seed sticks to passing animals who unknowingly disperse it to new sites in the forest. 

The giant clonal plant spreads across the forest floor and the fills the air with sweet perfume.  

The next plant is from the same family and is Honeysuckle, otherwise known as Woodbine, unlike the Twinflower it is common just about everywhere, the native version, Lonicera periclymenum, is widespread and found in hedgerows and woodland but there are many other species of honeysuckle that have become naturalised.

Honeysuckle flower, bud and fruit cycle on natural veiny vellum, using the vellum markings as part of the composition  can be effective. It's often necessary to use some 'body colour' on darker vellum - just a touch of opaque white is mixed with colour and used on the flower edges and filaments to make them 'pop' off the surface. 

Honeysuckle has a heady perfume at night, which pollinating moths, such as the Elephant Hawk Moth love but honeysuckle upports many insects, such as the White Admiral butterfly and of course many bees, but only a long tongued insect can reach the deep nectaries in the flower tube. Birds love the red berries in autumn and all round, it's a great plant for wildlife. This one grows outside my window so it was easy to access.

In plant folklore its long been associated with fidelity and young women were forbidden to bring the flowers into the house. Apparently it was believed that honeysuckle made the dream of their true love and stimulated risqué dreams! But having honeysuckle growing around the door was common and grown to prevent evil spirit from entering whilst bringing good fortune to the inhabitants.

An older study page of Honeysuckle, which I've painted many times.  

The Honeysuckle was a bit of an ad-hoc composition and I let the vellum guide me with no particular plan. I chose the focal point flower of the twining flower stem first and took it form there, the vellum was large enough to add more, I added the berries, then decided to sketch some additional stems onto tracing paper to see how they looked before taking the plunge. I don't often work this way but it's  nice to have a more organic approach to painting sometimes ... a 'see what happens' approach without being overly precious.

Rough scribbled ideas! In the end I decided to go for the trio of stems as a composition because  it created a square format and avoided the 'X'  shapes in the crossing stems that can be distracting from the focal point, I felt that the veins described the habit of the stems without over complicating it. I often scrawl ideas onto tracing paper in this way - it gives me  a rough idea of what works and what doesn't. 

The last one for this post is Primula vulgaris, I painted this some years ago on Kelmscott  (see below) and was always curious to know how it would looks on dark veiny vellum, so I repeated the painting with some alterations on a very dark veiny vellum. I wasn't sure if the pale lemon flowers would work so well on a dark surface but thought I'd give it a try. I used quite a lot of the opaque Lemon Yellow Nickel Titanate, which I'd also used on my previous painting, but it's important to maintain some of the substrate showing through because there's nothing worse than overly heavy painting on vellum, which kills the luminosity - it's a fine balance of 'how much' is enough on vellum.

I put cobalt blue under the leaves in the background and also on those with stronger highlights, surprisingly this creates the appearance of distance or highlights  depending on how its used. I kept quite a lot of the vellum showing through the colour as I liked this effect. The roots were very easy to paint almost created by the veins in the surface.

The image starts to emerge and you can see the effect where  the opaque colour is used on the flower petals

Finished painting on dark vellum above 2020 and below the original painting 2012 on Kelmscott. Two very different looks. Obviously I didn't have the plant for the second painting, neither did I have the original painting but I did still have photographs, studies and several other plants to work with,  so it wasn't so difficult to repeat....now spot the difference! 

The exhibition was due to to open for Easton's Snowdrop week on the15th February, alas the high winds and floods put a stop to that on the first day and weather proved to be a bit of a challenge that week! Easton Walled Gardens is a beautiful venue to exhibit at, I spent a few daysin the Coach House painting. The exhibition ran until the 15th March and we took it down at the beginning of the social distancing. It was pretty much the last time we left the house.

A painting day in the Coach House gallery, where the light is wonderful.

Snowdrops week! the sun came out eventually and all was good! 

Day 9, An Iris Seed Pod and some other exciting things!

It's actually day 10 but I'm a day behind after being away in London for the SBA annual exhibition. Haven't exhibited  for a few years, so it was really nice to be back on track and involved again.
I arrived home late last night full of enthusiasm and got up early to catch up with the challenge! Something small seemed a good idea so I chose to paint a small Iris seed-head, which was given to me last year by fellow artist and friend, Jarnie Godwin, aka Sketchbook Squirrel 
It's painted on Kelmscott vellum, funny enough it's a small off cut from one of the works for this years SBA show..

A quick vellum painting of an Iris seedpod for day 9

 I started on paper but decided that vellum would be better for this subject. it's always great for these dried subjects. I wasn't sure that I could do it quickly but it seemed to work. It could do with a bit more work but with only a short amount of time it was OK. Might add the seeds later on.

I'll maybe add the seeds and the other side of the pod later on. Apologies for the lack of information and photos, short on time 

today!

SBA Exhibition and new Work
 My two entries for the SBA show this year were Fritillaries, the F. imperialis is the largest painting that I've completed on vellum. The second painting was a small painting on vellum of F. meleagris. I was delighted to hear that I got an honourable mention for the F. meleagris, which goes to show that small paintings get noticed too! The F. imperialis was hard work ( see my previous post ) ......but not deterred by the scale of the task I've already ordered another whole skin and can't wait to get started. I was totally in awe at some of the work a this years show so definitely need to practice for next year now. I already have some ideas for what is a very exciting title subject. I'm going to focus on the theme of pattern for next year, which is an area Ive always had an interest in.

One of this years SBA entries, Fritillarie imperialis Rubra painted on a whole skin of Kelmscott vellum

I wasn't at the opening for very long but even in that short time it was lovely to meet so many other artists. Seems like the standard just keeps getting higher and it's a much more connected community of artists compared to the first time I exhibited withh the SBA back in 2002, I think that's all thanks to the internet, and supportes such as Katherine Tyrell with her Making a Mark blog, and of course to social media too. The ever increasing standard is probably due to the SBA diploma course which continues to bring more amazing new artists together every year. So it's all good and very exciting times ahead for botanical art.

A detain from the small F. meleagris painting, also at this years show

New Prints
One other exciting bit of news for me,  is that I spent an afternoon at the printers last Tuesday and picked up the first proofs for my new limited edition prints of the butterflies. I'm getting the proofs for two more works, the Fritillaria meleagris on Rory McEwen vellum and the Leaf Skeleton and Lichen Branch...all three are on vellum. It's not easy to get good prints of work on vellum but so far I'm pleased with the results and found a great photographer / printer who seems to understand the subtleties of watercolours..... probably helps that his wife is a watercolour artist too. Here's a snapshot I took of the first proofs, doesn't do them justice but the colour match and image quality is excellent. I'm trying to decide whether to print the butterflies life size or larger......never was very good at decision making!  Will post better photos shortly

Not a great photo but here are the first proofs for the butterfly prints... hot off the press!

My other painting currently at the printers

That all for now, time to take my daughter back to University after the Easter break, so back to the challenge again tomorrow. 

RHS London Orchid Show

To say it's been a bit of a rush would be an understatement! But I managed to finish the paintings and put them up at Lindley Hall tonight. I'm blogging from my phone so apologies for typos and the lack of captions etc.

In usual fashion I arrived last and left at about 9pm tonight. Before heading back to the hotel I managed a quick walk around the hall. The standard of work is incredible! and I can't wait to go back for a closer look tomorrow.

For my studies I've painted floral forms and development from a garden population of Fritillaria meleagris, all of the studies are on vellum and were painted during March and April this year - so it's been a very tight turnaround!

My largest painting of the population of Frits is painted on the piece of Rory McEwen vellum gifted to me by the Hunt Institute for Botanical  Documentation. Lugene Bruno kindly passed on information regarding McEwen's preparation of the vellum. He purchased the finest New Zealand calfskin from Band and Co. in Richmond, London ( closed some years ago). The preparation involved a thick coating of plaster of Paris , using a formula devised by William Morris and named after his press, 'Kelmscott' vellum. The thick chalky surface which was then rubbed down with fine sandpaper. 

I have to say that I was very cautious when rubbing down the surface coat and believe that I should have removed much more. The coat has visible brush strokes and is irregular in places, it gives a more absorbent surface than other Kelmscott vellum. 

The day before I was due to leave for London I decided to remove a large section of the work because I wasn't happy with the finish!  

It seemed like a drastic measure but I just wasn't happy with the finish. The other problem is the fact that the vellum is cut from the edge of a whole skin and is bucked. I didn't want to cut the edge away to straighten it so decided to live with it until such times as the work is framed. I will add more to the composition at a later date.

It's been a long few days and I'm ready for bed, will write more later but for now I'll leave you with a few images of my other small paintings.

Developing bud painted x 2 

'White' form but with some chequered 'red' markings (x 2)

A botanical study, I did want to add the tepals showing the nectaries and a dissection of the developing fruit...maybe later ( x 1.5)

Double-headed form, (x 2) seems very vigorous compared to the other plants.

  

I forgot to photograph this one so here's an picture of it unfinished. Standard form in bud (x2)

More tomorrow. 

Update 

I was awarded a silver for the paintings, I was happy enough with that for the amount of time taken to produce them. The feedback from the judges was useful. They preferred to see more of the plant than I showed in the smaller studies , I chose to do the smaller paintings due to time constrains, and, because personally  I like he small studies best. But I understand that judging for a show has a different set of criteria. If I do another show I will definitely take a much longer amount of time to prepare as I was literally still painting on the morning of the set up day! 

SBA 2011 Annual Exhibition and Graduation....oops I missed it!.

Returned home yesterday after visiting the 2011 SBA exhibition  at Westminster Halls on Saturday 16th April. After sharing the train with the Manchester United  and City supporters I was pretty relieved to finally arrive at Westminster albeit quite late in the day.  There's so much to take in at the exhibition and I should have been there for longer to do the show justice. As always the standard was high with lots of amazing work which included a central display dedicated to illustrations of various plants from all corners of the globe titled 'The World of Plants' - A few of my favourites this year include:  Jacky Jousson - for me he's one of the best botanical painters and the way he handles the light is truly amazing! Fiona Strickland's use of colour is fabulous, Julia Trickey's paintings are technically perfect and very beautiful, Billy Showell's  design based botanicals always bring something that's very refreshing to the genre. I also saw Sigrid Frensen 's work for the first time and it really is lovely - particularly the Pelargonium sidiodes.
I had 4 works on display, three of which were assignments from the SBA course. Next year I hope to paint something specifically for the exhibition....but what?

My Ceritficate for the SBA Diploma

It was also the graduation for course 6 of the SBA Distance Learning Diploma Course on the 15th at the Art Workers Guild in Bloomsbury. Unfortunately this didn't go to plan and I missed it! After a hectic week visiting family in Staffordshire I headed to London but for some reason convinced myself that the graduation was later than the time printed on the invite! This wouldn't have mattered too much but I also managed to miss the earlier train, then got lost! Logistics are not a strong point! I finally arrived a bit red faced and almost 90 mins late! just enough time to have a quick chat with Margaret Stevens and collected my diploma before heading back feeling rather stupid.....never mind some things just aren't meant to be!