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We do love to see some botanical paintings at the flower shows. Here are just a few pieces of work from some botanical artists. All images remain the copyright of the artist. Kay Rees-Davies Kay Rees-Davies, who lives on the north Wales coast, is a free-lance artist specialising in botanical subjects. She is married with two grown-up children and three grandchildren. Kay’s work has been shown in many galleries and group exhibitions in Wales, Chester and London. Her paintings are to be found in private and permanent collections throughout the world. Two are in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie University, Pittsburgh, USA, and five are in the Lindley Library of the Royal Horticultural Society. Five paintings are in the archive of the Chelsea Physic Garden, and one was chosen by Dr Shirley Sherwood for her collection. In 2005, Kay was invited to submit a painting to be included in the Highgrove Florilegium. This book has now been published under the umbrella of The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation and celebrates and records, in a permanent way, the Flora in the garden at Highgrove. The Royal Horticultural Society has awarded Kay Rees-Davies a total of eight medals, four of them gold. She has gained numerous awards for Botanical Painting from the different societies of which she is a member. Kay is a tutor for the Society of Botanical Artists’ Distance Learning Diploma Course, and holds classes and workshops in her area. https://www.nwsfa.org.uk/kay-rees-davies/

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Sarah Anne Hughes These plant portraits draw inspiration from the forest vegetation surrounding my home in Washington state in the US pacific northwest. Oxalis (Oxalis oregana) and Bunchberry Dogwood (Cornus canadensis) coat the woodland floor, thick stands of Thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus) and Salal (Gaultheria shallon) form barriers to easy walking and Wapato (Sagittaria latifolia) emerges from the sloughs of the Columbia River. These etchings with one other (not shown) received a Grenfell Silver Gilt Medal from the RHS in the early 1980s. After a long gap and back in England, my botanical art now responds to cultivated flowers such as tulips and irises while I rebuild drawing and printing skills. My successes and failures are recorded on Instagram: sarah_anne_hughes_prints

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CAROLINE JACKSON-HOULSTON At eleven, Caroline Jackson-Houlston started illustrating her own wildflower record lists, and is largely self-taught. She draws to fix points of identification, but mainly because she enjoys it and wants to celebrate the natural world, and encourage others to delight in it and protect it. Apart from plants, she paints other living things, especially, since 1987, fungi.

She finds watercolour is the best medium for botanical painting, though she would not call herself a watercolourist. For a botanical study, she sets up the design with lightly pencilled geometric forms to indicate the main masses of the painting. After measurement, the specimen is drawn directly onto hot-pressed 300 gm. paper. Where the subject may not be picked, she begins with a study in situ. Although she may take photographic references, colour-matching, sizing and drawing are done direct from the subject.

Recently semi-retired from teaching English Literature at Oxford Brookes University, her most recent solo exhibition (the third) was in November 2017. After gaining silver medals from the RHS in 2000 and 2001, she won a Gold Medal and Best in Show in 2018 and a Silver-Gilt in 2019. In 2003 she was elected to the Society of Botanical Artists, and she also belongs to the Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration, and The Wildlife Art Society International, and exhibits widely with the Alpine Garden Society, holding their Gold Medal and Bar for art. In 2019 she has contributed to eight exhibitions.

https://www.soc-botanical-artists.org/artist/caroline-jackson-houlston/