STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANNIE HUGHES

Weird, Wild, & Wonderful

Second New York Botanical Garden Triennial Exhibition

2014 - 2016

Medusa’s Head cactus

Astrophytum Caput-medusae

My vivid recollection when I first saw this plant was “what on earth is it?”, and the cactus man said, ‘It is an Astrophytum and quite rare’. I had applied to enter the Royal Horticultural Society show in London in 2012 with a series of six Astrophytums, a small genus of cacti, and I had already selected the ones I wanted to paint, all of them green. This one would be the odd one out, because it was brown and very different – different that is, until it flowered. I remember getting the phone call from the cactus man, ‘The flowers will open tomorrow so you must come’, and what a beautiful sight! Although this cactus is unusual compared to the other members of the species, it had the beautiful flowers that they do. The fact that it was only discovered in 2001 added to my interest. So now I had to paint it and its million spots. My interest in botanical art usually draws me to unusual subjects, or shapes, trees with strange fruits or deep colours, and complex forms. More often than not, they are incredibly difficult to paint! So this cactus appealed to me. And when I heard of the Weird, Wild and Wonderful exhibition, I thought this painting would be perfect for it.

In the case of this genus of cacti, Astrophytum, they are usually a solitary plant, spherical to columnar, with their most distinguishing feature being the white spots or tufts of hair that cover their surface; no other cactus has them. These same spots were mistakenly thought to be a form of fungus when being unpacked from their crates as the first specimens arrived in Europe from Mexico in the first half of the nineteenth century. 

What makes this subject Weird, Wild and Wonderful? Well, to start with, the name, Caput-medusae (Medusa’s head). That is weird in itself. Then the shape. I can only describe it as a bunch of twisted green beans that have turned a red-brown and are covered in thousands of tiny spots, with the odd wart or two. The flower buds remind me of small spiky cotton balls. The flower however is just beautiful. It seems to be made of the most delicate silk in the palest of yellow, with a hint of orange at the base of each petal.

My particular method for painting this piece was to apply a base of graduating watercolour washes, and then paint the tiny spots that covered each stem; this had to be done with a mixture of gouache and watercolour. Many tests were done to obtain the exact colour, light and shade, and most important, the way the spots are placed, their direction and density. I am primarily a watercolourist and rarely use other media, but for this work I had no other way of achieving the effect needed but to use gouache.

For this particular set of seven paintings, I did face some difficulty. For one plant in particular, Astrophytum ornatum, after spending a long time working on it, I decided to take it to my cactus grower for his comment, as I usually do, only to be told it was wrong, the spots were not in the right pattern for that plant. With time running short, panic set in. It had to be painted again, in about two weeks! It went on to win best painting in show at the RHS 2012, and was purchased by the Lindley Library.........I always work better under pressure! 

We all face difficulties in the pursuit of our Art at some point, but somehow we always deliver. My first Gold medal at the RHS was not without trauma. I had intended to paint the genus Lapageria, the native flower of Chile. I travelled to the country to find these beautiful flowers only to just miss the flowering time. Then I travelled to Tasmania, only to find very poor specimens. A bit crestfallen, I decided to travel again to Chile at the right time, only to be stopped yet again, this time by the massive earthquake that tore through and decimated the nurseries where these plants originate – among many other structures! I did not find the plants in the end so that project had to be abandoned. Sometimes you can try too hard.

So my theme became Camellias instead. The nine Camellia paintings were the easy part, as I have painted many Camellias in the past. But in seven months, I had to paint my nine Camellias at the end of their flowering season. I had to paint all the flowers first. Then as there were so many leaves to paint, I had to set myself a strict three leaves a day to get it all done, and I did. I am very good at leaves now!

A nice experience came when I painted a set of three small bunches of grapes, one white, one red and one black. But I really wanted four frames to sit together, so I painted a set of pips (seeds) for the fourth frame. When I exhibited them, it was stated that if you bought the set of three paintings, the pips were free! A supplier of grapes to the wine industry bought them.

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