award winning botanical artist • illustrator • book designer

I am very much a 'dry brush' kind of girl when it comes to my botanical work. I realised very quickly while working on my RBGE diploma that this technique worked for me and I pretty much stuck to it for the duration of the course. Now that I've completed the course I am trying to take the time to experiment more and 'have fun' again while I paint, and not get so hung up about the results. This is the second time I have painted these seedpods, the first time was for the diplom

I've been a bit shy to post pics of my Manuka painting until now. This was the first painting done 'on my own' without the help and advice of my tutors from the RBGE diploma. It was one of six paintings entered into the 2017 BISCOT exhibition and I received no individual comments about this particular painting from the judges. I guess it can't be too bad after all, or they would have picked it apart!

I had a great day today at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in the John Hope Gateway drawing seed pods in coloured pencil as part of the BISCOT exhibition. These seed pods are from the New Zealand native Carmichaelia australis.

Who knew that less than a year after completing my diploma in botanical illustration that I could achieve a silver-gilt medal at a BISCOT exhibition! The paintings I exhibited were Native Tree Flowers of New Zealand and were painted for the 2nd year of my diploma at RBGE.