STORY BEHIND THE ART OF GAYNOR DICKESON
19th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists & The Horticultural Society of New York
Golden Hornet Crab apples
Malus x zumi ‘Golden Hornet’
I thought it was easy to paint plants – until I tried it.
Ten years ago I was sitting in our garden and thought I would paint a beautiful flowering clematis that was climbing all over the wall. I think it was one of the worst paintings I had done and decided I needed to learn more about what it meant to paint plants.
I have learned a lot since then and I hope I will continue to learn. I thought I would get quicker at painting my subject as I got the hang of it. But no, I am getting slower and slower as I see the need for proper research and preparation before I even start the painting. But I am excited about what I do and realize how lucky I am having the opportunity to do it.
In 2011, I exhibited for the first time with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the UK and won a Silver medal for a series of Magnolia x soulangeana paintings in watercolor. One of the series is now part of the collection in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh.
Late summer 2011 I felt I needed to think about what I wanted to do for my next RHS exhibit. We had three crab apple trees in the garden, all of them different and each loaded with attractive fruit. I needed six different varieties for the series, but would worry about that later. I did a lot of sketches of the three trees as they were and gradually came to the conclusion that I wanted to portray them at different stages through the year in colored pencil.
My two favourite media are watercolor and colored pencil and I am happy as long as I don’t have to choose which I like best. I decided that I would paint the crab apple series in colored pencil to show that delicacy can also be achieved with colored pencil, even with dissections. I think everyone would agree with me that there is nothing like the fragility of fluttering blossom in the springtime.
I now had several challenges to fulfil. I needed to paint botanical portraits of six crab apple trees in colored pencil over the next 2 ½ years. The pictures needed to show the solidity of the apples and the vibrancy of their color, versus the fragility of the blossom; the difference between new spring leaves and the leathery effect of some of the older ones. In addition I wanted dissections of both flowers and fruits to help show the differences between the varieties.
Over the following year, I did lots of sketches and trial paintings of the crab apple trees as I added new ones to the series. And during a three-week period in spring I managed to do drawings of each of the trees in bloom. My husband bought me a microscope and the following year I did dissections of each of the blooms during a similar period of time.
Malus x zumi ‘Golden Hornet’ is the only yellow crab apple in the series. I found one while walking around a friend’s garden in the late autumn. She had a crab apple tree where some yellow apples still remained. She told me that her parents had been given the tree to help celebrate their Golden wedding anniversary and I was welcome to take what I needed through the seasons. Malus x zumi is now one of the seven crab apple trees in our garden on the south coast of England. As well as being beautiful in each stage of their development throughout the year, they make wonderful jelly!
I thoroughly enjoyed painting this series of pictures and in particular the yellow Malus x zumi. But, the most challenging aspect was making sure that each of the pictures was compositionally sound. Although I did a lot of sketches, everything was painted from life, with the exception of the dissections. Of necessity I had to introduce these last, from my sketch-book.
How did the series do at the RHS? I won a Silver Gilt medal and I am told that none of the judges realised it was done in colored pencil until they were giving me feedback from the judging and read it on the label! I think I achieved my goal.
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