Natural Law Botanical Art Exhibition

It all started with comment that Katherine Tyrrell (Making a Mark) made about holding an exhibition in a place where the people who can afford to buy your paintings live (or work). Normally when people put on a botanical art exhibition, they seek out a gallery or a Botanic Gardens, but what if instead of trying to coax people to come and visit your work, you bring your exhibition to them?

So with that in mind, Yanny Petters, Liz Prendergast and I approached the Law Library in Dublin, where Irish barristers and judges have their offices, and the seed of the Natural Law Exhibition was planted. 

The Natural Law Artists (L-R) - Patricia Jorgensen, Yanny Petters, Lynn Stringer, Shevaun Doherty, Elizabeth Prendergast, Holly Somerville

We planned it very carefully. We invited three other artists to join us (Lynn Stringer, Holly Somerville and Patricia Jorgensen), all superb artists. This meant that the exhibition would have a good variety of artwork of a very high standard. Everyone was given a job to do- invitations and posters, printing, email lists, labels, hanging. We organised sponsorship (a logo on the posters and invitations) to cover our costs. Our little group worked very well together and by November 8th, we had 73 paintings to hang.

Dutch Iris in Gouache

“Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers - and never succeeding“

Gian Carlo Menotti

After all the excitement of my trip to Frankfurt, I was really looking forward to getting back into my studio once more and painting!!  The Natural Law Exhibition is just around the corner and I wanted to do another flower in gouache. Besides it gave me the wonderful excuse to fill the studio with vases of colourful blooms!

In the end I chose Dutch Iris, Iris hollandica, a pretty flower which is quite easy to find in the shops. This proved a wise decision because I had to replace the flower several times during the course of the painting. I wanted to use the same technique as the Stargazer lily, painting in gouache on dark green mount board. I began by selecting a bloom that had just opened, which I then positioned in front of dark green board. 

Stargazer Lily in Gouache

 I have a confession to make. Although I love flowers, I don’t really like painting flowers. I know that sounds odd coming from a botanical artist, but I find them really quite difficult. Perhaps it’s because I don’t paint quickly, or because I prefer dry brush to wet washes, but flowers have a transient beauty that can fade before the paint is even on the page. I know I’m not the only artist to howl with frustration when that perfect bloom wilts before your eyes and drops it’s petals. It’s far easier to paint fruit and vegetables, which last much longer and have their own distinct beauty and textures. Flowers can be scary!

However, this Natural Law exhibition is fast approaching, and Liz’s words are ringing in my ears

 “Paint the things that people like to give to each other, like flowers”

So I threw caution to the wind, bought some lovely stargazer lilies for myself and decided to paint a flower in gouache on dark green mountboard. Yes, I was feeling brave!

I selected a nice bloom, one that had just opened. I positioned it using a floral oasis and placed a dark green board behind the flower. If I was painting on white, I’d use a white board. It just helps isolate the bloom from the background.

I drew out my design on tracing paper. I find it useful to draw rough shapes like the circle as a guideline.

I traced the design on the reverse using a white Polychromos pencil, and then transferred that onto the green mountcard by going over the design with a pencil. So far, so good… the flower is still fresh and I’m still feeling quite confident.

Using white gouache, I began to paint over the white pencil lines, and slowly building up the form of the flower. This is the bit where you start to question your sanity as it can take a long time to get the right tones. The gouache tends to dry darker, so you have to keep building up the layers... and then more layers!  Inevitably, I ended up taking quite a bit of paint back off again too, but fortunately the mountcard is quite forgiving.

I know from previous experience with lilies, that it’s easier to paint the stamens and stigma first, and then to paint the petals around them, rather than to try to paint the petals first.

Once I had painted the stamens and stigma, and built up the form of the petals, it was time to introduce some colour. I switched here from gouache to watercolour. At first I mixed some of the watercolour with the gouache to make an opaque paint, but once the gouache is dry, it’s possible to continue building up the colour in transparent layers. 

As well as my red colour chart, I did a quick chart of the various pinks laid over white gouache on green card. The colours that I used for the petals were Permanent Rose, Quinacridone magenta, Purple magenta (Schmincke), Alizarin, Winsor orange, Rose madder. The shadow colours were Cerulean, Cobalt violet and Indanthrene.

As my friend Claire Ward says, “With gouache, it’s a case of forward and back, forward and back.” 

I love Claire's beautiful flower studies in gouache. She has quite a few gouache tutorials on her blog, Drawn to paint Nature which are worth looking at.

Once I was happy with the petals, it was time to put on those little spots, and also those tiny protuberances on the petals which act as important signposts for pollinating insects. Everything on a flower is so beautifully designed... even those spots follow subtle lines which lead to the center.

Finally I added the leaves and the stem, which were surprisingly quite easy to do, although perhaps painting green on green helps. I used Cerulean, Indanthrene, Lemon yellow and Perylene green.

Lilium Oriental Stargazer

Amazingly my little bloom lasted all week, and filled my studio with it’s divine smell. I still wouldn’t rush to into painting flowers, but it’s hard to resist their seductive charms.

 "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not."

Georgia O’Keefe