PAINTING THE VICTORIA AMAZONICA LEAF

From 1st April until 17th September 2023, my life-sized painting of a leaf of Victoria amazonica will be on display at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew Gardens exhibition “The Wonderful World of Water Plants.” How it got there has been quite a journey! Here’s a look at the story of its creation, which starts with a baby plant at Kew, includes some cans of lock-down baked beans, and ends in the collection of Dr. Shirley Sherwood.

When I started illustrating the giant Victoria water lilies some years ago, my first focus was capturing their flowers. Quite early on, I was asked “will you be drawing a life-sized leaf?” I shrugged this off as a joke. After all, the leaves of Victoria were already known to reach around three metres in diameter… how was there paper large enough, or hours in life long enough, to take on such a project? Still, not every Victoria leaves is that large… so I purchased my first ever roll of large sized watercolour paper and propped it in the corner of my studio to think on, for later.

THE SPECIMEN

1. “Helping” to plant out Victoria amazonica in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, April 2019 with Jean-Michel Touche; 2. The leaf being cut from the same plant in November 2019, 3. Cutting up the leaf to make a herbarium specimen.

A baby plant of Victoria amazonica, grown from seed by Carlos Magdalena in Kew’s Tropical Nursery, was planted out in the Princess of Wales Conservatory at Kew in April 2019. I was actually invited to help, which was a lot of fun, although weird trying to plant something into soil underwater. As you can see above, at this stage the leaves are usually only the size of dinner plates.

The plant grew well and had a wonderful summer producing beautiful blooms, which I drew and painted. By November each new leaf produced was becoming smaller than the last, as is normal for the giant water lilies in cultivation in the northern hemisphere; as the days become shorter there is not enough light or heat to sustain them. Jean-Michel Touche kindly cut a specimen for me. I chose a leaf that was in good condition and roughly one metre in diameter, the right size to fit my paper, which was 120cm at its widest. I didn’t know what the underside would look like until it was cut, and was delighted to see its beautiful colour revealed when it was flipped over. I took lots of measurements and photos, before cutting it into pieces to put into a herbarium press. I knew a specimen would be useful as a voucher record and also for reference should I need more information from it while painting.

PREPARING THE ARTWORK

Like all of my botanical illustrations, the painting began with a drawing. I made a simple but detailed and accurate line drawing about A2 in size, which I then scanned. I put this aside to work on when I had finished some more of the flower illustrations. Then early 2020 arrived. I had enough work to keep me busy for a couple of months, but then - no more. Suddenly I had the time to start painting the leaf. I figured such a large sheet of paper would need to be stretched on a board. After much planning (and purchasing a large piece of plywood online for lockdown-style collection), I prepared a stretching board by coating it with varnish.

I practised stretching and taping down a few smaller pieces of watercolour painting, onto which I drew small portions of the leaf. These were useful to try out the painting techniques that I would use on the real piece. Stretching the paper for the final piece was a family affair, and I was grateful to have a couple more hands to help uncurl and cut the paper, before spraying and brushing it with water to relax the paper’s fibres. It could then be lifted and flipped over onto the board, where I taped it down and left it to dry beautifully flat.

Four handy cans of baked beans helped to hold down the corners of the curling paper while I sprayed and brushed it with two coats of water, helping the paper’s fibres to relax and flatten. With help I lifted the damp sheet of paper up and over, onto the waiting board. This was quite scary. After removing air pockets, I fixed it to the edge of the board with dampened gummed tape before leaving it to dry.

DRAWING THE LEAF

Using a projector I had purchased for exactly this task, I set the paper up in a room of the house which could be darkened, and which was just long enough to position the projector far away enough for the board to show it at the correct size. The set-up was rather precarious, as the board was propped up on a couch and the projector on a slightly wobbly tripod. I realised at this point that the drawing had to be made in one go, otherwise any slight movement of board or projector would throw the position of the projection out! This took a few hours, but was just the beginning. After relocating the board into my little box-room studio, I spent another whole day re-drawing the leaf properly from the basic lines captured from the projection.

STARTING TO PAINT - MASKING FLUID & FIRST WASHES

I had made a couple of practice pieces to figure out how on earth to start painting this beast. I decided that the best approach was to mask out the veins of the leaf, as they were light parts against a dark background which would otherwise take too long to paint around. Digging out an old box of saved small brushes (they really do come in handy one day), I applied gloopy masking fluid carefully to all the veins. Where there were sharp-pointed prickles projecting out from them, I also tried to paint them in, struggling always to get the masking fluid to make a sharp point.

1. Drawing down from a projection, in a darkened room; 2. Finessing the drawing in the studio; 3. Drawing the veins in with masking fluid; 4. Laying down first washes over the masked veins, one section at a time. I removed the masking fluid as soon as possible; after that, the veins were painted around.

I mixed up jars full of my first colours (the violet for the central leaf blade, and maroon red for its edges). As soon as a section of masking fluid had dried, I applied my first washes of paint over the masked veins with a large brush, working out from the centre and letting the colour gradate to white before it reached the red edge. When that part was dry, I worked inwards from the edge, but in the red colour. Very wary of leaving masking fluid on for too long (it is known for damaging paper), I did the first layers for the entire leaf this way, in one very long day! It was a relief to pull the mask off once everything was dry, and see the feint beginnings of the leaf’s veining pattern start to emerge.

building up colour and detail

From here on in, the gargantuan task of painting the leaf began. I had the basic bones of the leaf down and began the process of building up the colour and detail. Practical details to consider included whether to work flat or upright. I had never painted anything on such a scale before. Some lengths of wood attached to my table with a couple of clamps allowed me to lean the board up against the wall and work upright, which is both how I prefer to work, and was the only way to reach all parts of the paper. I fell into a pattern of working on one quarter of the leaf at a time, layering it with one or two layers of watercolour before turning it and working on the next section, to ensure an even application of paint.

I began to record my daily or weekly progress on the painting, and sharing it to social media. It was quite a hit, and before I knew it I had a fantastic audience of people following the project and cheering me on, which was a huge help. I worked on the painting every day for several months straight. I loved this time: being able to work on just one thing, every single day. This was very different to my usual life as a freelancer where I juggle several projects at once. Every morning I went into the studio where I put some music on, mixed up some paint, then sat (or stood, or both) and painted for around eight hours straight.

1. June 2020; 2. also June 2020; 3. September 2020; 4. September 2021. It was fun to pose with the painting at the end of each week and share the results, and useful for me too, to see that I was in fact making progress. These were long, but simple and rewarding days requiring great patience!

FINALLY…. COMPLETION AND A NEW HOME

I continued working on the painting for many, many months. As life became busier once again in 2021, it became harder to find the time to spend on it. I put up to c.10 layers of watercolour on each part of the painting. The tiniest details were refined last of all, which included sharpening and defining the prickles, and adding all the tiny veins within each larger vein section. I took the painting off the table and painted it from the floor for a while, so that I could paint all parts of it upright (not upside down or sideways as was often the case). But finally in late 2021 (to cut a long story short!), I was able to put my paintbrushes down and declare it complete.

In 2022, I was delighted to learn that the painting would join the amazing collection of Dr. Shirley Sherwood. The painting was couriered to Devon, where it was finally cut away from its board - much to my trepidation - and beautifully framed. It arrived at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery at the Royal Botanic Gardens just a few weeks ago at the time of writing this blog, and now hangs proudly on the wall there. If you are able to, pay it a visit yourself! You have from 1st April until 17th September, 2023. I hope you like it, especially if you followed its progress online for all those months - and if so, I thank you.

I enjoyed every crazy minute of creating this painting. Now I can’t wait to get started on the next two species…..

Adding the small details: every single section was checked for details such a small veins and sharp prickles painted with a zero-sized brush. The darkest parts of the leaf blade throw the small prickles forward. I also went over the whole painting upright on the floor, away from the table and… finally… my first sight of it framed and in the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art - back at Kew, from whence it came.

Are you interested in owning a print of this painting? Half-sized giclee prints (60 x 60cm) are available to buy directly from me, or see my Etsy shop. Full-sized prints (120 x 120cm) are also available - please contact me directly.