2023 “Foraging Plants in the Norwegian Mountains – From Bog to Sand”.

Silver Gilt Medal

My second RHS exhibit was in 2014 when I painted a series of six different crab-apple trees in colour pencil. I won a Silver Gilt medal for this and a silver medal for my first RHS exhibit in 2011. I learnt a lot from both exhibitions and used this knowledge when planning this series.

But why plants in the Norwegian mountains? Norway is my second home and I love it here with its amazing nature. Over the years my friends taught me so much about the country and whilst my children were growing up we picked a lot of the fruit displayed in this botanical art series.

I have never forgotten the pleasure of utilising what was and is freely available in Norway’s beautiful landscape. And, again living back in Norway as a botanical artist, I am thrilled to be able to watch the plants grow and produce fruit for us to pick during our shortish, intense summers.

I thought I knew a lot about the species I chose to paint, but when researching them to make sure I got my facts right in each picture, I learnt so much more and have really understood what it means to respect nature.

Having exhibited with the RHS twice previously, when a different number of pictures was asked for, the exhibit this time was to include six pictures. As I started thinking about my next exhibit already in 2014, I completed seven pictures. Each of the seven is included here but please note that the Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – Small cranberry, is not part of the 2023 RHS exhibit and therefore has not been awarded a medal.

Each picture is painted with watercolour and graphite on mounted calfskin vellum. This was a substrate I had not used previously, but with encouragement from fellow botanical artists, I decided to give it a go. This obviously meant a lot of practicing and the RHS judging process will no doubt tell me if I have succeeded or not.

I wrote a blog with a detailed description of why I painted the series, my working process, and details about each plant and its picture. The blogs were published twice a week from 19 March 2023 until the opening of the exhibition 15 June 2023. There is a slideshow for each species comprising photos taken whilst I was painting each picture. I have also included at least one recipe for each species.

This is the link to the first blog in the series

Only one of the series is not in the Ericaceae family, and that is the Cloudberry – Rubus Chamaemorus, which is part of the Rosaceae genus. Of the other six plants, four are in the Vaccinium genus.

The pictures are in the order of the type of ground in which they grow – from boggy to sandy.