Story behind the art of Rebecca Davies

27th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators

Salmon Oefa Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum cv.

I am fascinated by the wide range of media and techniques that have historically been used in botanical art. While I enjoy working with traditional media such as watercolor on paper and vellum, I am also constantly experimenting with different and dynamic ways to capture my subjects. 

Gouache is paint that is similar to watercolor but made opaque with the addition of a white pigment. It produces strong, crisp illustrations for reproduction. Gouache has been used for centuries by revered botanical artists such as Maria Sibylla Merian, who depicted fascinating flowers and insects in gouache on vellum in the 1600s. It has also been used widely in abstract work by well-known modern artists such as Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. It is now used by contemporary botanical illustrators including Fellow of the Society of Botanical Artists Simon Williams, who promotes this often overlooked medium for botanical artists, and was a source of inspiration to me for this piece.

I worked with gouache many years ago at school, but this painting of chrysanthemum ‘Salmon Oefa’ is my first botanical illustration in gouache. I selected this subject because of the beautiful, creamy colored petals, which I thought would be interesting to depict with the opaque qualities of the paint. A key difference between watercolor and gouache is that instead of working light to dark, one begins with the midtone and adds shadow and highlights from there. This method took me some getting used to but was particularly enjoyable when I worked on the ridges of the long straight stems. I applied the thick creamy paint using a stippling technique, which was perfect for capturing the slightly leathery texture of the heavy leaves. Although gouache is water soluble, I found it preferable to work with more speed than I tend to with watercolor, as the paint does not respond as well once dried on the palette and rewetted. I hope that this approach has successfully imbued the final piece with a lively energy that embodies the cheerful, sunny character of the flower heads.

Next Story

Back to List

Read more about this artist's work: Curious Allies