STORY BEHIND THE ART OF NATALIA ALATORTSEVA

21st Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at Wave Hill

Himalayan Mayapple

Sinpodophyllum hexandrum

I met the Podophyllum genus for the first time when I was a student at the Biology Faculty of Moscow State University. Its tissue was one of the examples in a plant anatomy course, but it impressed me with its morphology, mostly its shape and position of leaves.

 This specimen, Podophyllum hexandrum, grows in many botanical gardens; some grow at Wave Hill. Mine is from the Moscow State University botanical garden, where I met it in spring 2017. I was impressed by its temporary spring anthocyanin coloring, its dragon or bat shape and its sprouting energy. That spring was cold, so the sprouting stage was long enough to make many outlines and sketches.

 Podophyllum genus (Berberidaceae) specimens can be found in Asia and North America. Sometimes this specimen is called Sinopodophyllum and grows only in Asia. It is an interesting object for botanists because of its morphology and anatomy, which make the plant look like it is not from dicotyledons, but from monocotyledons. Podophyllum hexandrum, Himalayan mayapple, grows in scrub forests and alpine meadows and it is on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) List of Threatened Plants. It is poisonous, but its fruit are edible and different parts of it are used in traditional medicine.

 In the picture there are five sprouts: four flowering and one vegetative. Most leaves are just unfolding and the plants look like a group of sleeping bats or pterodactyls with skin looking like a crocodile's. Cold light is falling from the sky, so the parts of the leaves which are shining through are warmer. But there is a collision, the warmer parts of the plant are farther from the viewer than the colder ones.

 There were several challenges for me. This specimen has elegant forms which required working both with its shape and negative space, the shape of white paper. The next one was color matching: its fresh leaves led me to the idea to use as few watercolor layers as possible, so I chose dark pigments to put the dark tone in at one dash. I am very interested in drawing leaves, in observing their pigments, shapes, venation, pubescence and so on, so even if the main idea is larger, the leaves are the point on which I am focused. This plant was a great challenge for me. Hope you will enjoy it!

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