Botanical art Norway

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 4. History of the project

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This picture was taken 4 July, it had snowed and it was bitter cold with a wind behind it!
Believe it or not, this was taken the day after on 5 July and it was really lovely and warm.

Weather is very changeable in the Norwegian mountains and although mid-summer, it can snow. This can make it difficult not only in choosing species to paint, but also finding them and making sketches in the open.

I still. hadn’t decided which species I was going to choose to follow up on, although I did have a rough idea. A lot depended on how easy it would be for me to access the plants and whether I could find them in the vicinity of the cottage we rented each year.

Several of the plants I had been thinking about had fairly small fruit and elements of the plants were also very small. How was I going to display this? One plant had large leaves and two had very tiny leaves. Some plants lived in very boggy areas, several had access to water but the roots weren’t lying in water, and one was happiest in dry areas such as sandy pine forests. Some of them intermingled.

How was I going to work this out? I wanted an exhibit that drew together seven different plants into a whole.

I started by just sketching mountain plants with fruit that were edible (not toxic). This started my several-year long period of ‘Constructive Procrastination’!

I started painting the final pieces in 2021 after moving back to Norway.

Sketching

First page in my sketchbook – Cloudberry sketches

Today, my sketch pages are rather a mess. They started out beautifully organised, but as time has progressed, I have added more sketches, more information, and more colour matching. This means that my sketch book is now not a beautiful work of art but a tool to get enough information for completing a final composition.

This is the first page in the sketchbook I kept for this series. You can see the very first sketch of the cloudberry leaf that I did in 2014 whilst teaching at Åsgårdstrand. In later years I was able to add both male and female flowers actual size and enlarged dissections. BUT, I was stupid enough to forget to get all the measurements and have spent the last two summers chasing to find the relevant pieces at the right time of year. 

I had other pages with Cloudberry sketches including research done on the net, and referencing different photos I had taken, but none gave me all the information I needed!

It took me years to catch up on this plant as every year is so different. One can’t guarantee that flowering will happen at the same time each year, or, as in this case that you find both sexes of flower. One year, we had planned our trip from the UK to coincide with a roughly general fruit picking time for this plant. But when we got up to the cottage, everything was long over as it had been a very hot summer. 

I am telling you this here as it shows how important it is to get all the necessary information when you are doing the sketches. 

Cloudberry fruit sketches from berries given to us by a kind couple who had found ripe fruit 200m above where we had looked.

Each year we rented the same cottage in the mountains for a two-week period. I spent the whole time sketching and painting, when we weren’t out hunting for specimens or picking fruit.

By 2018 I had not been lucky enough to find any fruit since starting the project in 2014.

One day we were out picking Bilberries when below me I saw a couple walking along a path with two bulging plastic bags full of something orange. I knew immediately what they were and rushed down to ask the stupid question ‘where did you find these’? I knew full well no-one gives up the location of their ‘mountain gold’ – a name used for Cloudberry fruit. But luckily enough when I explained what I wanted them for, they gave me two berries. The above sketch is those two berries. My husband had never even tasted them at that point, so they became a treat for him!

This will continue 2 April 2023

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 3. History of the project

| Gaynor's Flora
Rolls of hand-prepared calfskin vellum.

planning my choice of media

Deciding which plants to study and paint was only one of many decisions I needed to make. I also had to decide what material to paint on and with what!

I chose calfskin vellum.

I helped to scrape the skins clean of fur.

In November 2016 I met some friends at William Cowley’s and we were shown round the family business in Newport Pagnell. Cowley’s have produced parchment and vellum there since 1870. It is a smelly business, but they were able to assuage some of our concerns about using a material from animals. Apparently, no animal is killed to obtain the skin – it is a by-product from animals used for our food and milk.

The cattle, goat and sheep skins used for parchment are all obtained from farms where livestock has been reared for wool, milk or meat. No animals are bred to make parchment. 

William Cowley website

Cowley’s staff select the best skins available and transform them into beautiful pieces of parchment and vellum.

The transforming process of changing the skin into vellum and parchment used for artwork and legal documents, is hand-done and takes a long time. Cowley’s vellum is ‘worth its weight in gold’. I bought some fairly well matched skins so that I could get seven pieces from them each measuring 25 x 31 cm when mounted; Cowley’s also did the mounting for me. 

Vellum is a very special substrate and there are examples that go back hundreds of years. The Magna Carta was written on vellum 800 years ago. Today we have DNA testing and as vellum is skin, this can be a fantastic safeguard.

There are not many limitations as to what can be used on vellum with colour pigments in the form of watercolour paint, ink and gold foil well known. But graphite and waxy pencil can be a hindrance and not normally recommended because of their fatty nature and difficulty with adherence to the vellum. Whatever is used, lies on the surface and is not absorbed into the substrate as with paper. That is why the colours can appear more vibrant.

In botanical art it is customary to use watercolour on vellum, but I also wanted to introduce graphite which I knew could cause some difficulties. This was something else I needed to research.

Luckily, when I was teaching at the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA) conference in 2019, I watched two well known artists painting on vellum with watercolour and graphite graphite. I absorbed all the tips that they were able to give, and this helped enormously when adding the graphite sections to my pictures.

Composition contents

Golden section overlaid Vaccinium corymbosum leaves artwork. Note compositional use of ‘third’ lines and placement of main focal point.

Composition is a very difficult subject, and it is something many of my students struggle with. There are loads of ‘rules’, but the best design is by those who know the ‘rules’ and know how to break them; look at Rory McEwen’s work as an example.  When saying this, it sounds as though I have overcome the issue of composition – far from it. For every picture I paint, the result is my subjective view. For the person looking at the picture, their subjective view is likely to be slightly different. 

However, in modern times there is much research into the placement of the main focal point and some equipment can ‘see’ what the brain notices first when accessing a picture or view. As a baseline, the Golden section is not far out. Therefore, defining the placement of the focal point in a picture is important.

I have spoken to quite a few people about what they would like to see in my series of pictures. I had decided on the measurement of the mounted vellum piece, 31 x 25 cm, therefore I had limited space. 

I wanted to paint several elements of the plants, repeated across the series, demonstrating details of the plants not normally appreciated. I hoped that people taking their normal flora for granted would learn about these plants from my finished artwork.

As I was looking at edible fruits my main point of interest was the fruit. But, without overloading the composition I wanted to give information about the flower, its habit and habitat. I still hadn’t decided exactly which plants I would include, but I knew that they would normally live several meters over sea level, preferably in the mountains and probably have some sort of association with each other. 

Read on in the next blog due to be published 30 March 2023

First Norwegian botanical art workshop since our move.

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The first botanical art workshop in Skoppum

At the end of February this year I decided that at last the situation in Norway was such that it was reasonably safe to have a workshop for the first time since the start of the pandemic early 2020. I therefore put together an email with very short deadline – one month.

I sent the email to everyone who had been in touch with me with a query about botanical art workshops in Norway. I was surprised to see that there were quite a few on the list, but as this was the first workshop since moving back to Norway, I decided that I didn’t want too many people first time around.

Yes I had taught in Norway previously whilst I lived here 25 years ago, but I knew that I would need to rebuild my reputation for teaching here again. I needed to find out if anything had changed and if expectations were different from that time, or from my experience in the UK and the USA in the interim.

Three people got back in touch with me immediately and signed up for the workshop. They arrived on Friday late afternoon, and came back raring to go both on Saturday and Sunday. I think that the smell of newly made coffee and home made cakes just out the the oven helped to relax everyone from day one.

This was the first time I had met any of them although one was a student from my online course. All of them were fairly / very new to botanical art and from the atmosphere, I think that each of them became just as thrilled at discovering what nature has to offer as I have become over the years.

The subjects chosen: The ground is still fairly frozen here with several minus degrees at night, although the sun is beginning to warm well during the day. The are some new shoots in the verges and woods starting with Coltsfoot. But all of the plants chosen this time were from the local garden centres; tulips, fritillary, daffodils and narcissus. The temptation to choose something very exciting looking such as a rose or filled narcissus, is huge. But when starting out, looking at something simple and how it is put together so that that you know what to look for, is very important.

I am glad to say that in the end, each chose plants suitable in relation to their experience in painting botanically. And, each commented on the joy of being able to ‘see’.

Everyone chose to paint using watercolour. Norway doesn’t seem to have many botanical artists at all, so hopefully their enthusiasm will help to change this situation. But just as botanical art in itself is unusual, so is the use of coloured pencil. Hopefully this too will expand with time.

I am thrilled to say that I now have several new Norwegian botanical art friends and look forward to making more with further workshops planned.

Outside my comfort zone

| Gaynor's Flora

I love painting small plants; plants that seem insignificant but are beautiful and worth noticing.

I love the challenge of painting the detail of these small plants so that everyone gets a chance to admire them and perhaps look out for them whilst out and about.

One day I was walking near the station in Tønsberg, Norway and saw some shrivelled Rosa rugosa hips in the snow. I picked one little branch thinking I might paint it on vellum. However my daughter thought I should accept a challenge outside my normal comfort zone; She felt I should portray it much enlarged on paper.

The thought of doing this felt very uncomfortable as I have noticed that some artists who suddenly go large do not increase the amount of detail and the picture doesn’t do the plant justice. I have drawn and painted parts of some compositions scaled up so that the viewer can actually see the detail, but have never done a whole painting like this. Was this going to work for me?

Sketching the Rosa rugosa

I started sketching the hips into my sketchbook, then once I had a good line drawing I transferred this to my Fabriano paper; Luckily I have quite a lot of the ‘old’ batches of both Artistico and Fab 5. This is done on Artistico Extra white.

Ready to start painting

You can see here that I really look after my paper whilst painting. It is so easy to get splashes or ‘dropped brush’ marks if one isn’t careful.

I normally cover the art paper with layout paper hung from the top. Then I cut it into about three strips so that I only have the part I’m painting, uncovered. On the lower part I tape clear acetate.

First stage of painting

I always lift out the graphite tracing before I start the first layer of paint and lay the clearest colours first. However, in this picture I decided to lay a neutral tint wash(made of three primaries) under my colours to indicate the direction of light and form.

For the next rose-hip in the bunch of four, I decided to replace the graphite outline with a watercolour pencil. I sometimes do this if I am a little unsure of where I am going in the painting, but I use only a pale colour. I lift off the excess pigment with a putty rubber and using a slightly dampened brush I soften the watercolour pencil edge making sure no water goes outside the line of my subject.

… And so the third rose-hip….

Third hip done
Colour pencil outline 4th hip
Graphite underlay for stem

I wanted to do some of the picture in graphite, leading into the main part with the hips. Sometimes using graphite towards the background can reduce the heaviness of a picture. The stem of the Rose-hip is very prickly and therefore doing some of it with various graphite pencils made sense. I used graphite along the whole length of main stem and then colour washed part of it.

The final ‘bird-picked’ hip.

I did this picture five times life-size and it comfortably fits an A3 sheet of paper. Does it succeed?

One final comment; Rosa Rugosa grows everywhere in southern Norway and it is not a native species, therefore they are being removed wherever possible. This is because they take over the habitat from other species that belong here. I remember with shame that I was one of those people in the early seventies who planted a Rosa Rugosa hedge in the front garden – across the fjord from where I live now. My children were small at the time and I knew that the hips provided a lot of Vitamin C. But I know now that it is not a good enough reason to introduce a foreign species.

Dying Rosa rugosa

My latest piece of botanical art – in Watercolour

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Bog Rosemary at 900 metres in the Norwegian mountains. Peeping up from Sphagnum moss and surrounded by Cloudberry leaves.

Its been a while since I last did a blog about my process, but as I am getting into a new piece I thought I would share it with you as I go along. First of all let me tell you the story behind the plant.

The plant is Andromeda polifolia or bog rosemary and I first saw it in wet boggy areas high up in the Norwegian mountains.

I am painting a series of plants with edible fruit from this area  but found this beautiful little flower and decided to investigate it. The fruit is not edible and may in fact, cause some uncomfortable side effects, therefore not suitable for my series.

Andromeda polifolia in Chelsea Physic Garden, London.

The plant was named by Linnaeus, comparing the plant to Andromeda. The plant is indeed beautiful in its native boggy setting.

I am a member of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium Society (CPGFS) and one of the plants in the garden is an Andromeda polifolia, although at lower altitudes it seems to be a much sturdier plant, taller and with more leaves. Being part of a Florilegium means that on a yearly basis one has to paint one of the gardens plants as part of its documentation process. With the beautiful little mountain plant I had in mind from Norway, I thought this a fantastic opportunity to study and paint it properly for the CPGFS. By the way, although I am painting it for the CPGFS, it doesn’t mean that it will be accepted. A rigorous process is gone through before artwork is accepted into their collection – this I won’t know until February 2021.

As I normally do, I studied the plant carefully, researched it and drew detailed sketches in my sketchbook. I also dissected the flower as I thought this told a story in its own right. The anthers have appendages which is typical of plants in the Ericaceae (Heather) family. Also, the petals (5) are fused into a tube. I am not a botanist, but the more I study the plants I paint or draw, I feel I always want to know more about them!

Once I felt I had enough information I planned my composition. This is not always easy and although we have lots of ‘rules’ etc to guide us, in the end it is what you feel looks best that is the decider. Here are two plans that I made to choose from.

Which one do you prefer?

In the end I chose the composition to the right as I felt this was more likely to guide the eye around the composition.

I did both of these compositions digitally, using the sketches from my sketchbook.

The following pictures are are photos taken at different stages, but as the painting is not finished I will need to come back with additional blogs to show you the rest of the process. By the way, the graphite line drawing in the centre is a habitat drawing showing the plant at its natural size.

When I wasn’t walking in Norway …

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…..I was either hunting for plants or painting.

I had a list of plant detail that I had worked out I needed to complete the composition planning for my series of pictures. My vellum size for each piece is 25 x 31 cm – which I suppose relatively speaking is quite small. But all but one of my plants is very small with leaves varying from 2-6mm long on the Vaccinium microcarpum, to the Rubus chamaemorus where the leaves vary hugely in size.

Vaccinium microcarpum – Small Cranberry – Leaves 2-6mm long.

Impetrum niger ssp. Hermaphroditum – Crowberry – Leaves 3-6 mm long

Rubus chaaemorus – Cloudberry (image is 13cm high)

I decided that rather than work on all seven pictures at once as I have done so far, I would work on half this year and the rest next year. For all of them I needed to do some colour matching on vellum as this will be different to the colours I have used on paper. You have already seen the small piece I did on the Cranberry a couple of blogs ago. You may also have noticed the difference to the actual flower size (tiny) and the painting  which I did at twice the size.

Luckily enough although there is a slight difference in the terrain from which each of the plants come from, we have found each species within walking distance of the cottage in which we have been staying. The Cloudberry and the Cranberry can be found intertwined with each other in the soggy sphagnum moss – but not always. The Bog Blueberry (Vaccinium uliginosum) comes from a similar area, but I have seen it reaching up the side of rugged outcrops. The Crowberry can be found all over the mountains although the Ssp Hermaphroditum can only be found at higher altitudes. The Bilberry can also be found pretty well most places, but doesn’t seem to be above the tree-line and doesn’t seem to like really boggy areas. The Cowberry – Lignonberry (Vaccinium vitas-idaea) is spread on ant mounds and rocky outcrops.  Common Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) likes much drier conditions and is often found in pine woods. But we did find an example not far from the cottage. Last year Robin drove about 150km to find a spot that I knew about!

Below is the colour sample of the Bog blueberry done this year. The very new new leaves start out quite red and as they get older they become bluer and stiffer. Sorry the photo is a little dark.

Vaccinium uliginosum – Bog blueberry – Watercolour on vellum 5×7″, painted twice natural size.

How the weather and the plants change in the mountains.

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The other side of the valley looking down to the cottage

Robin, ant directing!

You might not be able to make out too much detail in this picture, but we were on the other side of the valley from the cottage in which we stayed. To get there we went down to 806 metres and the highest part was 1104 metres. We only walked about 10 km – in 5hours and finished it off with a waffle and sour cream. Delicious!

This time the day was fantastic. The wind had dropped and it was actually warm-ish – about 16º C. In some areas we even took off our fleeces.

On our journey we found female Cloudberries, Pedicularis sceptrum – Moor King, ants struggling down a little river (so we provided some with a life raft and others with a bridge).

Usnea Lichen

We also found a birch wood with a lot of fresh Usnea lichen hanging off the trees.

Birch skog.


I have always found that the colours in Norway at this time of year really sparkle. The green of the grass seems so new and the blue of the sky is also amazing. Of course you can see for miles and miles.

Waiting

We still had a way to go and my poor daughter stretching ahead, sometimes had to wait for us old fogeys. I think she is almost at the highest point of our walk at this stage, just about to trek downhill.

Trailing azalea – Loiseleuria procumbens

Unripe Cloudberry – Rubous chamaemorus

We continued to see some amazing flora including the Trailing azalea and large patches of female cloudberries.

Seeing so much cloudberries meant of course that we were walking through areas of quite boggy ground. But I can’t tell you exactly where, because for a Norwegian, the site of ripe Cloudberries is a trade secret and never divulged to anyone!

When you see the final pictures of Norwegian mountain foraging plants in a couple of years time, you will know what lengths have been gone to to get subject matter!

Summer snow in the Norwegian mountains

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Whilst everyone else is suffering extremely high temperatures in Europe, we are experiencing +4 high in the mountains of southern Norway! I believe it is warmer at the North Cape.

However, as there is now no longer a direct ferry from the UK to Norway, we drive here over several days, with our cargo of painting equipment. A necessity for the job I am going to do whilst here.

On the way we stopped off in Amsterdam to visit my son and partner and had a cycle ride to the coast in 37 degrees. It was almost a relief to eventually get to a cooler climate, although the day we arrived it was in the high twenties lower down in the valley.

Today’s view from our rented cottage.

Since then, the temperature has gradually sunk even lower. Today we are awaiting my daughter who lives on the Norwegian coast, advising her to bring  winter woollies. I didn’t dare tell her that it has been snowing today – although it hasn’t settled.

So why am I subjecting my sun loving and warmth seeking husband to todays chill in the Norwegian mountains? It’s the plants of course. I am now back to getting all the plant information to paint my pictures for my next RHS exhibit. I know I have spoken about this for a couple of years or so, but my involvement in the Worldwide Botanical art exhibition last year and continuance with setting up the Association of British Botanical Artists (ABBA), rather delayed things.

Because of the delay, I also lost my right to exhibit at the RHS – this year being five years since I last exhibited. I therefore had to apply again. Luckily, my work in general was again accepted as potentially worthy of a medal place, so now I am going to work through my subjects properly and, rather than rushing it, plan to exhibit in 2021.

Små Tranebær is Small Cranberry in Norwegian. The practice piece is twice natural size (the actual flower top right) is on vellum – as the final work will be.

This year I am focusing on three of the plants I have chosen and plan to get information I feel is lacking to complete a picture. My first is Vaccinium microcarpum – or Small cranberry. Last year I was able to find ripe fruit and was able to get all the information from that. Previously I had only drawn one flower, so I am concentrating on these now.

I thought you might be interested in my already messy workplace setup at 910 metres over sea level!

If Denise Walser-Kolar sees this blog, I hope she will notice I have taken on board her teaching. As long as I practice what she taught in Vienna, painting on vellum is going much better – even with the tiny leaves! Thank you Denise.

The other two plants I hope to get some more information on is the Vaccinium uliginosum (Bog Blueberry) and a little from the Rubus chamaemorus (Cloudberry). In both instances, it is only small details I need. I have already noticed that the leaf colour of the Bog blueberry seems to change in the sun. New leaves have a red tinge to the edge of the leaves, older leaves don’t, but in the sun they become red to almost a Perylene Violet (for watercolour artists) colour. I didn’t realise that before.

The Cloudberry fruit is only to be found on female plants. Each plant can be quite huge and spread many metres. Around the cottage I have only seen the male flowers of the Cloudberry – no female ones at all. it might be because it hasn’t warmed up very much yet where we are. The temperatures are set to improve, but I doubt we will be here long enough to benefit from it.

Please don’t get the wrong impression of Norway. The summers can be hot and the winters cold. It is a fantastically beautiful country and every area has its own attraction. I like it in the area we are staying as I lived in the valley for several years. Lastly, a picture of the sun rise a couple of days ago. It doesn’t get totally black at night at this time of year, but this was taken at 03:30.

Haven’t had time to update my own website – so here goes!

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I have been really bad at keeping on top of my own website because of all the work in relation to ABBA (Association of British Botanical Artists). Therefore this information about my participation in the RHS exhibition next week is not on the right page! Sorry about that, but I am telling you a little more about it now and hope that you will be able to make it.

Following on from the exhibition ‘In Ruskin’s Footsteps’ at Lancaster University, we (ABBA) have a stand this coming week at the RHS Plant and Art Fair, which for Botanical artists is a very important event. It is on 11th & 12th July at the RHS Halls in London. ABBA have a stand with the majority of Botanical artists, in the Lindley Hall. As I said in my last blog, Follow the Banner!

We are exhibiting five of the original pictures from the juried exhibition in Lancaster, giving everyone a further opportunity to study them. One of them is mine – Sea Thrift, painted on vellum. I mentioned that I would be demonstrating at the exhibition and now it is clear which medium I will be using, also which plant I will be painting.

I had intended getting my own exhibit finished for the RHS exhibition next year, but because of the amount of work that has gone into ABBA, I have decided to put this off until 2020.  My topic is ‘Foraging plants of the Norwegian Mountains’.

It became very clear whilst going through the various phases of the Worldwide exhibition preparation, that although the UK is a distinct island it is still part of the European Continent. At one point in our history we were connected without needing to use a tunnel, boat or plane. Our plants bear witness to this in that many of the plants that are native in Northern Europe, are also native in the UK. However, some may not be so common these days.

Image being drawn on vellum

One of my series of plants is the Arctostaphylos  uva—ursi, Common bearberry in English and Melbær in Norwegian. It looks similar to a Crowberry, but is white inside (floury), giving its Norwegian name. When picking Crowberries it is not popular to mix Bearberries in by mistake as they don’t taste quite as nice, although edible. Also it is a stone-fruit and not a berry!

ABBA wants to encourage botanical art in relation to our native flora. As I intend to paint the series on vellum, I will be using this medium on the ABBA stand at the RHS. I have a nice little plant of the Bearberry with the beginnings of small flowers. The image is already transferred to a small piece of vellum which will be ideal to practice on and make decisions about which colours to use.

From my sketchbook.

You might be just able to see that in my sketchbook I have quickly done a rough tonal drawing, indicating where the light is coming from. I have also put in a little blue to indicate where the light of the sky has reflected on the leaves and started indicating the difference between the colour on the front and back of the leaves: but that is in my sketchbook. Which colours I will actually choose to use on the vellum, remembering that colours appear far more intense on vellum as it reflects the colour of the pigment better than on paper, will be the result of this trial piece.

In addition to my demonstrations we will be talking with people to find out what they want from ABBA in the future and whether they – you, want to be part of it. Our focus will be to help anyone, anywhere, interested in botanical art to learn more.

But there is a little icing on the cake: The RHS have agreed to show the Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition slideshow from 25 countries. This will happen in the talks area of the Lindley Hall, between and after the talks. But just in case you want to see it otherwise, we will be showing it on the ABBA stand.

This is the last opportunity to see the Worldwide Slideshow!

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