I have worked since 1996 as a gardening book and magazine illustrator.
Images © Meredith Publications USA
Seeing plants through paint and ways of painting long grasses with flowers in suspension; weaving them into a painted warp and weft. Inspired by 1950’s printed textiles. I find this a liberating way of starting work and see possibilities of them returning to being textiles.
These close concentrations of flowers from gardens and the wild I use as reference pages. Inspired by botanical studies and paperweights of extruded glass flowers rods.
Working within squares gives pattern building possibilities for tiles or cards.
Terracotta flowerpots are just perfect things, lovingly holding plants as they come in from outside to be painted, and be painted themselves.
For many years I made and sold hand painted porcelain buttons and brooches. The decoration is high-fired to the smooth surface.
My looking begins with plants outside but I like to look further within a stilled interior setting. I sometimes work with a collage of painting processes to a achieve a juxtaposition of plants and background.
Drawing often begins in black and white and I sometimes still like the graphic quality of the focus it can bring.
An on-going play of plants on backgrounds of pattern or texture.
