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

David 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.