Paintings for the Exhibition

The organisation for our Beckler’s Botanical Bounty Exhibition is underway. There are diverse tasks we have to do, but, as you can imagine, one of the most important is selecting the paintings to hang in the Exhibition. To find out more about the Project on my blog click here, or go to the website for more detailed information.

[A reminder that our exhibition will be held at Ballarat Art Gallery in February 2018.]

It was always understood that that each artist would have at least one painting selected. From there on it is up to the team and the curatorial staff at the Gallery to decide which paintings best tell the story of our Project. I am offering up five for selection. I will add a link if I have blogged about the creating the painting.

Four paintings are all in the same genus, Cullen. There are more plants in the genus, but these four are common to the area, depending on the season, and were collected by Beckler. I have written about the genus here. My ability to paint Cullens developed as I went along. So, if I had time I would repaint the first, Cullen discolor. However, it belongs in the set. You might like to have a closer look at the painting in this post.

Cullen discolor (Image and photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2016)

The next year I found Cullen pallidum, the bushiest of the four, and with a soft grey leaf. It is probably the most attractive of the genus, but I have a very soft spot for the humble C. discolor. It seems that I only have a post about the finished work, and not about the progress.

Cullen pallidum (Image and photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2016)

The next to be found was Cullen australasicum, which turned out to be flourishing right on the edge of the Broken Hill Menindee Road. This one’s a real show off! I am sorry, but I have no posts about this painting.

Cullen australasicum (Image and photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2016)

The last, Cullen cinereum, is still a work in progress, but I hope to finish it in the next week. The spot where I found it last year is under water this year, so how lucky was that? This link will take you to the back story of my painting.

Cullen cinereum (Image and photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2016)

Lastly there is Senna artemisioides subspecies filifolia that I collected this year. [Read the post about it here.] It is definitely a work in progress. I included it for selection because another artist has painted the other Senna that was on Beckler’s list, and I thought the selection panel might like to have a pair of Sennas in the exhibition.

 

Senna artemisioides subspecies filifolia (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2016)

So, whether these are selected or not is now in the hands of the selection team. I don’t envy them the job, because all the paintings that have been painted have a connection to the Project, and all of them deserve to be in the Exhibition. Many artists have created superb works, often with beautiful, detailed microscopic drawings alongside the plant portraits.

I will leave you with a few closeups of my Cullens.

Painting my Cullen cinereum

Don’t we just love to see how creative projects are progressing? I have been following the progress Kate’s Cloth of Heaven, a beautiful quilt she is making as a special present. So, I thought you might like to follow the progress of my painting of Cullen cinereum.

Often I draw feathers, which I sell in my Etsy shop. I am also working on other, looser watercolour paintings. However my C. cinereum painting is a larger, more precise botanic art painting that I am painting for a special project.

I am one of a group of botanic artists who go to Menindee each year to collect plants that were first collected in the area by Dr Hermann Beckler, a member of the Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860. Our aim is to collect all 120 of his specimens and then do a painting of each of them. You can find out more about the Beckler’s Botanical Bounty Project on our website.

This October was the fifth time the Fella and I had journeyed up there. I was looking specifically for this plant, C. cinereum. Beckler collected four plants in the Cullen genus. I have collected and painted the other three, now it was time to search for this one. Below are my paintings of the first three.

Cullen palladium (Image copyright: Anne Lawson)

Cullen discolor (Image copyright: Anne Lawson)

Cullen australasicum (Image copyright: Anne Lawson 2015)

I found it easily enough, on the dry bed of Lake Pamamaroo. So I collected my specimens [and yes, we have permits to do this] and set up my work space back in Menindee’s Civic Hall.

Cullen cinereum growing (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015)

My work space in the Civic Hall (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015)

The dry bed of Lake Pamamaroo (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015)

The first stage of painting is not any art work at all, but a lot of research. Accurate identification of the plant is crucial and that means working through the species key provided in reference books ~ what makes this plant Cullen cinereum and not C. discolor or one of the other species? What are the features of the genus? As well there are structural things to look at ~ how does the leaf join to the stem; are all the leaflets the same size? What is it’s habit and what identifying features do I need to include in the drawing?

Some artists move on to doing microscopic work and produce delightful drawings of the tiny parts of a plant. Unfortunately I am not very good at doing this. I do enlarged drawings of different sections, such as leaf joints and flower buds. Such drawings help me understand the plant and are a great reference.

Once I have a good understanding of the specimen before me, I begin a measured line drawing. Botanic art is done at size. Any enlargement, such as microscopic work, is indicated, for example x2, x10 and so on. Tracing paper is great for line drawings as you can rub out as often as you like and not destroy the paper.

The line drawing on tracing paper (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015)

Line drawing on tracing paper

Tonal drawing on tracing paper

This time I also managed to get a tonal drawing done. I laid another piece of tracing paper over the line drawing and shaded in the darker areas I could see on the specimen. Aside from colour matching, that’s all I have time to do up in Menindee. [You may remember the story of the little ladybird that hatched on the plant as I was drawing it.]

So, back home and it was time to transfer the line drawing to the good sheet of paper. I am using Fabriano watercolour paper, 300gsm. At this stage I had to consider the composition of the painting. I am fortunate that the specimen I used had a very nice shape to it. You can see the nice flow in the line drawing. It has a gentle curve that nestles into the corner of the paper and then the strong diagonal across the page. As well this composition shows the identifying feature of the habit ~ that it grows along the ground a little way and then becomes more upright.

To trace it I went over the drawing on the back of the tracing paper with pencil. After placing the tracing on the good paper I went over the whole drawing again to transfer the pencil on the back to the paper. Your really get to know the drawing well when you do it this way!

The drawing traced onto the good paper with some of the washes on the leaves

The next step begins, laying down washes on the leaves, and the tonal drawing comes into its own. I have lots of photos, but they don’t guide me at this early stage. It would be too easy to get carried away and not leave the lighter sections.

First washes on the leaves

This is where I am up to. Most of the leaves have their first wash. I have begun to add in some of the stems and flower stalks as I need to know whether they go in front or behind the leaves.

Close up of an area, to show the stalks going in front and behind the leaves.

The sad story of a little creature

The plant I am painting from my Menindee trip is Cullen cinereum.

Cullen cinereum growing in Lake Pamamaroo (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2015)

Cullen cinereum growing quite happily in a take away coffee cup! (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2015)

To paint it I have to concentrate on it, learning about its shape, the way the leaves join the stems, the structure of the flowers and so on. I was intrigued to see this attachment. At first I thought it was the empty shell of a creature….

Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015

….so imagine my surprise and delight to see the next stage. It was not a dried, rejected casing, but the pupa of a ladybird! (This link explains the life-cycle of the ladybird.)

Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015

I identified her (hopefully correctly!) as the transverse ladybird, Coccinella transversalis. She will have to be added to my painting. She scurried around the leaves, hunting down little beasties that were lurking. Not that I could see them, but I know from microscopic work that there is whole zoo on plants.

Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015

And now to the sad part for the little ladybird. I didn’t think about her on the last day as I pressed my specimen and packed away my gear. So when I got home I was dismayed to find her, quite dead, tucked into the fold of my pencil case.

Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015

Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2015

She certainly deserves her place in my painting.