HOME GALLERY 1 GALLERY 2 GALLERY 3 GALLERY 4 GALLERY 5 THE ARTIST 'MICROSCOPE'
 
  Tulip 'Estella Rijnveld'  To see this painting 'under the microscope', click here  
   

Awards

Royal Horticultural Society:
Silver Medal 1995
Gold Medal 1996

Society of botanical artists:
Elected Member 1997
Certificate of Botanical Merit 1999

Exhibitions

capel Manor Gallery:
Enfield 1993

Thompson's gallery:
Aldeburgh, Suffolk 1994

Royal Horticultural Society:
London 1995 1996

Society of Botanical Artists:
London 1993-99

Open Studios Galleries:
Suffolk 1997 1998

Lucy B. Campbell Gallery:
Kensington, London 1996-2005

Gordon Craig Gallery:
Knightsbridge, London 1999

Chelsea Flower Show:
London 2000

The Hunt Institute of Botanical Documentation:
Pittsburg, USA 2000

Hintlesham Hall Gallery:
Suffolk 2001 2004
2006

Training

National Diploma in Art and Design
Bournemouth College of Art 1957

D
avid Murray Scholarship
Royal Academy 1957

Art Teachers Diploma
Bournemouth College of Art 1958

Goldsmiths Post Graduate Certificate
University of London 1984



My garden
I have a a small but very intensively planted garden with clipped box hedges, topiary and standard roses. I don't grow anything very large or exotic, preferring old-fashioned flowers such as pansies, sweet peas, pinks, antirrhinums, irises and alliums in great profusion.

In the spring the garden is full of bulbs. I particularly love tulips and try to grow different ones each year besides my old favourites. I'm very fond of auriculas which I grow in a cold frame, bringing them out when they are at their best.

I have a small glasshouse in which I overwinter my pelargoniums and marguerites and grow tomatoes and aubergines in the summer.
I use many of the flowers for my paintings and often plant things especially to paint. I prefer blue, mauve, pink and white flowers which seem to suit the dark box hedges best.
  But, by mid-summer I have to allow yellow, orange and red because I love nasturtiums, marigolds and dahlias too much to exclude them. In spite of my careful planning, there is usually a mix of colours by the end of the season.
 
 

 
My work:
I paint botanically accurate and minutely detailed plant portraits in watercolour. I am not really a botanical illustrator. The paintings are concerned with texture, richness of colour and dramatic tone and are carefully composed on a white background.

Because of the transitory nature of plants, I take a lot of photographs of a subject before I start and make colour studies.I then draw out the composition which can take several days to complete, afterwards transferring the image to the paper I am going to work on before starting to draw. I use a magnifying glass. Hopefully the flower, or one like it, is still available when I draw out the image very lightly with a hard pencil, making many alterations to the composition and the subject as I work. I include every detail - even down to the pollen on every stamen.

Still using a magnifying glass, I begin to paint. Often I go over the drawing with a very fine brush and then work in quite dry and very thin washes, building up the colours gradually. Over the following days I gradually build up layer upon layer of paint until I feel that it is the best I can do. The whole process may take anything from two to six weeks.


Commissioning a painting
Some of the commissions I receive are for birthday or anniversary presents and some are requests to record a favourite flower - often from the client's own garden. Because my paintings take so long to complete and there is usually a waiting list, it is best to contact me several months in advance of your deadline if possible. Prices start at £500.

You can telephone me direct on 01728 648748 or email me by clicking here.

Limited-edition prints of some of my paintings are available from Pauntley Prints. Please click to visit their site.