multe

FORAGING PLANTS IN THE NORWEGIAN MOUNTAINS: FROM BOG TO SAND.

| Gaynor's Flora
Link to the Saatchi Gallery website

The title of my exhibit at the “RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show” is as above:

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

Six of my watercolour and graphite paintings are exhibited by order of habitat starting with those growing in the wettest environment to those in the dryest. Seven paintings were completed not just the six, therefore it was a difficult choice to remove one of them. The second one shown below, the small cranberry, is not in the exhibition.

1. Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry – Multe
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
August 2022

1) Habit
2) Male flower – 2a) LS Male flower
3) Female flower – 3a) LS Female flower
4) Fruit
4a) TS fruit
4b) LS fruit

2. Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – Small cranberry – Små tranebær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
January 2022

1). Habit
2). Flower
3). TS fruit
3a) LS Fruit
3b) Fruit

3. Vaccinium uliginosum – Bog bilberry – Skinntryte
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
December 2021

1) Habit
2) Flower pair
3) Fruit
3a) TS fruit
3b) LS fruit

4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum Mountain Crowberry – Krekling
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
January 2022

1). Habit
2). Flower
3). TS fruit
3a) LS Fruit
3b) Fruit

5. Vaccinium myrtillus – Bilberry – Blåbær Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
March 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower
3) Immature fruit
4) Fruit
4a) TS fruit
4b) LS fruit

6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea  – Cowberry/Lingonberry -Tyttebær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
November 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower cluster
3) Fruit
3a) TS fruit
3b) LS fruit

7. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi  – Bearberry – Melbær
Watercolour & graphite on vellum.
October 2022

1) Habit
2) Flower cluster
3) Fruit cluster
4) Single fruit
4a) TS immature fruit
4b) LS ripe fruit

If you have read the blog series you will understand that the Cloudberry and Small cranberry enjoy the wettest environment – bogs and marshes, whilst the Bearberry is often found on a sandy forest floor. The other species are found in various types of environment from damp woods to harsh mountain tops. Some, like the Bog bilberry will grow very well just about anywhere as long as it has water and plenty of sun.

All of the plants in this series live in the Subarctic part of the world and have always provided a lot of nourishment for those living in the far north, the rest of us a little further south and of course animals that roam the area.

Some of the plants typically don’t grow in certain areas as witnessed by the difficulty I had finding the Bearberry. In very hot and dry years some plants produce next to nothing; Cloudberry and Small Cranberry are good examples. Can you imagine the risk that Global warming brings to these plants as well as to us. The warmer the planet gets, the more further north these plants are likely to move making it even harder for us and the animals they support, to find them. As it is, plants that can normally be found further south in Europe, are now beginning to appear in Norway; their pollinators moving with them and having a negative effect on the species that belong.

When choosing to study and paint these plants I didn’t realise how much I would learn about them. I loved the plants (and their fruit) before this, but now have so much respect for them and the environment in which they grow. I hope that I have been able to pass on at least a smidgen of this.

Thank you for following this series.

Latest news: I am really pleased to say that following the judging process yesterday, 14 June 2023, the judges decided to honour me with a Silver Gilt medal. The award ceremony will be held this evening at the Saatchi Gallery during the preview to the exhibition opening tomorrow.

I look forward to getting detailed feedback about my exhibit from the judges this afternoon.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 14. Cloudberry part 2

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Ready to be captured on vellum. Connections are important!
Using graphite and watercolour wash. Maleplant in the autumn.

Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry -Multe

Planning the artwork.

The piece of mounted vellum I had ready was 25 x 31 cm and I had seven mounted blocks all the same size. Finished, they needed to look like one series of pictures, but the Cloudberry was a plant so unlike the other ones. The element that linked was the habitat. As an example, I only found the Vaccinium microcarpum when following the rhizomes of the Cloudberry because the roots were completely intertwined.

Once I felt I had all the information I needed for each subject, I scanned the sections and manipulated them with editing software on my computer. I then compared them so that I knew each picture had similar information. The Cloudberry was the only one that was Dioecious. The series was about the fruit, so it was these that were prioritised, although I did include pictures of the flowers. 

Because each cloudberry plant was either male or female and had male or female flowers, I needed to show the differences. The male flower is generally slightly larger than the female and the centre of the flower is completely different. 

The male flower. Stamens in a ring at the base of the sepals. the centre is concave.
The female flower. A ring of false, white stamens around the centre with several pistils arising from the centre.

Both male and female flowers have the same number of sepals and petals, but the male flower has a ring of stamens round the base of the petals, with the very centre dipped and smooth. The female flower displays the gynoecium (female reproductive organs) with a ring of white, false stamens round the base of the petals. 

Male plant June 2017
Female plant July 2021

From a distance and once you know what to look for, it is easy to tell the difference between a lot of male or female plants.

This sketch page shows more cloudberry sketches (with additional ones from the small cranberry). You will find both the deep red male plant and the sketches of the small cranberry in their respective final pieces of artwork.

In 2018 when these sketches were done, the summer had been hot and tough for the plants. The Cloudberries ripened very early and by the time we arrived they were long gone. All that remained were some dry leaves and soggy berry remnants. But the sun had really worked well on leaves in the open, changing them from lush green to orange and fiery reds.

More sketches including the two berries we were given in 2018.

Once I had decided which elements were important for the picture, I did line drawings and moved them around digitally until I felt reasonably satisfied with the arrangement. Of course, in some instances adjustments were necessary and easily done on the computer. The line drawing composition above was almost the last one I made whilst well into the artwork.

In my final artwork I used several sketches as a basis. The sketches are used as a template whilst painting from an actual plant. Having the plant in front of me for the final artwork, enables me to paint its portrait as I see it, getting its botanical detail right at the same time as conveying texture and three-dimensionality. These are all things not easy to do from a photo.

I traced the whole composition to get the placing correct on my mounted vellum block, then each element was traced onto separate pieces of paper.

The vellum needed protection as I worked, and I used one of the old tracings that I had no use for, plus a clear acrylic sheet. All surfaces against the vellum are completely clean.  

Getting the overall composition placed correctly
Tracing over the section I will start with.
Protecting the vellum block.

Once the image is traced over to the vellum I lifted off much of the loose graphite from the transfer process. I generally start with a pale wash, allowing this to dry completely, then remove the remaining graphite. I continue painting with a dry technique being sure to lay this very lightly.  

Sketching was started in June 2014, the final artwork on vellum started July 2022 and finished in August 2022 except for the scalebars. 

Cloudberries are a circumpolar boreal plant, occurring naturally throughout the Northern Hemisphere including the UK and Norway, although there is little fruit produced in the UK.

Source: Kew – Plants of the World online

Cloudberry cream recipe

This recipe for ‘Mountain Gold’ is served on very special occasions including Christmas. It is served with cakes/biscuits often made in the period leading up to Christmas. Many of the recipes include almonds .

500ml whipping cream 
2 ss sugar
2 ts vanilla sugar (see recipe at end)
300ml Cloudberries

  1. Whip the cream together with the sugar until light and fluffy. 
  2. Stir in Cloudberries and sprinkle with vanilla sugar to taste.
  3. Place in the fridge until serving.

Serving:
Extra Cloudberries, Shortcake Biscuits

(from https://www.detsoteliv.no)

Vanilla sugar (vanilje sukker)

2 Vanilla beans

300gm sugar

  1. Split the vanilla beans in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. 
  2. Put the seeds into a blender with the sugar. 
  3. Blend with the blades until the sugar has become completely fine-grained and well mixed. 
  4. Put it into a glass with a lid and add to recipes as needed. 

The next blog post about the Small cranberry will be on the 7th May 2023.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 13. Cloudberry part 1

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Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry -Multe

In Norway, Rubus chamaemorus is often referred to as ‘Mountain Gold’ because it doesn’t grow everywhere, it isn’t always easy to find and in some years is quite sparse. It is a delicacy and the one fruit that people would like to find and pick. If anyone finds an area which has a lot of ripe fruit, they normally keep it to themselves for fear of others picking the spot clean. Up until 2003 it was forbidden to pick the unripe fruit; this was changed as it was difficult to enforce. But in northern Norway where it has economic importance, the landowner can forbid picking.

Cloudberry  is considered to be an endangered species (red-listed), it has a long, up to 10 metres, creeping rhizomatous root system and enjoys life best in sphagnum moss bogs. The species is dioecious with each plant either male or female. Although one generally sees the Male plant flowering every year, sometimes the female flowers are very sparse. But in the two last years, there has been a lot, relatively speaking, and if you know where to look!

Unripe, a Cloudberry is red, but as it ripens it becomes gold and it has a very distinctive flavour. Cloudberry is in the same family as Blackberries, so you will know that each drupelet has pips; once accustomed to the taste, one doesn’t mind the pips.

  • Male Cloudberry flower with ring of stamens.
  • Open pink sepals with stamens remaining on male cloudberry flower.

My friends who lent me their cottage when I started the series, pointed out that there were lots of Cloudberry plants round the cottage, but they had never seen any fruit. I had a quick look at the flowers (the two photos) and was able to tell them that they only had male plants in the patch. But only a few metres away there were loads of female plants busily flowering and developing fruit. They were unaware that Cloudberries had distinct male and female plants, so I showed them how to tell the difference.

Obviously, the distinction between male and female plants was one of the things that I needed to show clearly in my final artwork. But in the meantime, I needed to do as many sketches as possible and of course take accurate measurements. In my pleasure at starting properly in 2017, I straightaway forgot the necessities and didn’t take measurements of my dissections. Unbeknown to me I wouldn’t be able to catch up for another five years in 2022! Luckily, this was the only plant where I seemed to chase my tail year after year.

The page of sketches, is a ‘Cloudberry’ poster showing a collection of drawings from my sketchbook.

I was particularly pleased with the plant sketch showing both leaves and very unripe fruit. But, apart from this initial sketch I didn’t see either unripe or ripe fruit until 2018 when I was given two fruit by passing pickers.

I did the trial on the vellum (at the top of the page) in 2021 when I at last found fruit to take back to the cottage. But I still needed flower measurements.

Cloudberry poster put together from several sketch pages.

The pictures below show the area in which we found quite a lot of fruit in 2022.

Actually we were very surprised because we hadn’t had any rain since early autumn 2021 and all the lakes and reservoirs were pretty low. As you can see to the right, the moss was quite burnt on the surface, although there was still water deeper down. The area in which we were able to walk without getting too wet was much larger than the previous year. Global warming!!

The second part about the Cloudberry will be posted 4th May 2023.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 10. My working practice

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  • Benton Iris Farewell
  • Dying Rosa rugosa
  • Rhododendron Impeditum

Composition

Do these three pictures have good compositions? It is not easy for you to judge from these as composition is the area within the mount edge – the image and background.

  • Benton Iris ‘Farewell’ is Watercolour and graphite. The painting is part of the Cedric Morris Florilegium.
  • Dying Rosa rugosa is in Watercolour. It was one of the first paintings I did after returning to Norway. The sprig was sticking up above the snow, so it shrivelled quite fast.
  • Rhododendron impeditum is also watercolour and graphite. This picture is part of the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium.

Composition in botanical art is not necessarily very straightforward. As botanical art is ‘art’ it should have a main focal point that draws you into the picture. Once your eye is drawn into the picture, something needs to lead it around within that picture and prevent it from being lead off elsewhere.

On top of this, botanical art must be botanically correct. 

The first digital arrangement of my cloudberry sketches

Combining the art and botany for each picture is hugely difficult particularly when you have different sections telling a story about a plant. Having a series of plants in separate pictures that elaborate the story compounds the problem. 

To try and reduce the problem a little I started to arrange the pictures digitally. I scanned some of my sketches and moved them around within a 31 x 25cm area. It gave me something to think about when deciding what to include in each picture and how many more sketches I would need to get all the information I needed.

Scanning and arranging digitally gave me the opportunity to do something similar with my other species and the ability to compare them against each other. This composition looks nothing like the final one, but I kept rearranging until I was satisfied.

I worked hard to compose my set of pictures so that they looked a series. This can be quite difficult when some are from different families 

  1. Rubus chamaemorus – Rosaceae
  2. Vaccinium oxycoccus Subsp. microcarpum – Ericaceae
  3. Vaccinium uliginosum – Ericaceae
  4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum- Ericaceae
  5. Vaccinium myrtillus – Ericaceae
  6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea – Ericaceae
  7. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi – Ericaceae

The first word in each species is the Genus name from which the plant is derived. Four are Vacciniums from the same Genus.  Six of the plants are from the Ericaceae (heather) Family and you can see this by the similarity of the flowers. One is from the Rosaceae(rose) family, and the stipules on the leaves (tags at the base of the leaves) is a clear indication of this.

Deciding the enlargement was relatively easy with the plants from the Ericaceae Family where the fruit is comparable. But as everything was larger on the Cloudberry picture, only the scale bars can give the size.

My aim with all the pictures was to let people see and understand the incredible flora and edible fruit available in the mountains. Many look at plants and think them pretty, or know where to pick certain fruits, but not so many study the plant and understand how intriguing it really is. This is an opportunity.

What to include in each composition.

I went through my sketchbook and made sure that I had enough information about each plant to fit on my vellum, mounted on blocks by William Cowley’s. I didn’t want to overcrowd each picture. 

The focus was the plant and its fruit, but one can’t do this without highlighting its flowers. I decided to introduce a picture of the flowers and fruit but restrict dissections to the fruit only. That is until I got to the cloudberry which was going to be the most difficult to integrate into the series. But it isn’t called ‘Mountain Gold’ for nothing.

In the end, all but the cloudberry picture included a branch enlarged and branches actual size to indicate habit. Each had an enlarged flower, plus fruit with both longitudinal (LS) and transverse sections (TS). These are the finished longitudinal sections from each fruit; the largest being the Cloudberry.

  • Cloudberry/Multe
  • Small Cranberry/Små tranebær
  • Bog bilberry/Skinntryte
  • Mountain crowberry/Krekling
  • Bilberry/Blåbær
  • Lingonberry/Tyttebær
  • Bearberry/Melbær

In the next blog I will be talking about my transfer process. This comes 23 April 2023.

Only Eight weeks until the RHS Exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London;

https://www.saatchigallery.com/exhibition/rhs_botanical_art___photography_show_2023

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 8. My working practice

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A year in the life of a Magnolia x soulangeana tree. In watercolour and graphite.

In 2011 I did my first RHS exhibit – ‘A year in the life of a Magnolia x soulangeana tree’. The tree was in my front garden, so I had a good source for the material I would need. But to get my eight pictures completed in time, I needed to paint throughout the year. The main picture from which all the others derived contained all the phases the tree went through during the year. It was whilst I was doing this series that I became interested in the inner workings of plants and started using a microscope. Of course, to do this I also needed a sketchbook. 

Sketchbook work

Malus x scheideckeri “Red Jade” in Colour pencil

Being a very impatient person I always wish I could get the perfect result first time around. When I started out painting plants, although I had drawn and painted most of my life, I was not very good at using sketch books. But I quickly understood that most of those who did botanical art also did a lot of work in sketch books. 

Sketches from my Crabapple pages.

Encompassing sketchbook work I felt was difficult as I paint directly from the plant in front of me. Why would I want to sketch it several times before painting the final piece? Surely the plant, or flower or leaf would at least have changed or even died before I got to the final painting!

For my second exhibit in 2014, ‘Small is beautiful; Crab apples explored’ I did six pictures from six different crab apple trees – also in my garden. As the title suggests I was doing an exploration of each crab apple  – again over the year. The final artwork displayed the fruit and flowers and dissections of both; I again needed my microscope and sketchbook to get together the necessary information about each of my plants. 

Malus x atrosanguinea ‘Gorgeous’ setup

But this time. I also worked out another way of using my sketches and my photographs. Yes, I take an awful lot of photographs which I use to confirm detail. I have painted three pictures using this photo; but each picture is completely different.

I used the same photo setup but picked different apples and leaves from the garden each time I painted a picture.

Below are sections from two of the paintings. Compare the difference.

But what has all this got to do with my work process towards my current RHS exhibit? 

I learnt a lot during the process of planning for my previous exhibitions and it has all come in very useful for planning this one.

My first exhibit was done in watercolour on paper and the second one was colour pencil on paper. This time it is watercolour and graphite on vellum. A completely different kettle of fish! 

Preparation and plenty of sketches is everything. 

The main sketch that I used in the Cloudberry painting was the one below, drawn in 2017.  When working on my final artwork in 2022, I found appropriate plant pieces to paint from and the Work In Progress (WIP) is as you can see. The immature top fruit is rather different to the sketch, and the lower one has even started opening. This development is not on my original sketch, but I liked the layout of the sketch and wanted to incorporate it in my final piece. The final leaves were painted from several new ones, to include the ‘tatty’ nature of one of them from the sketch.

Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry WIP
Rubus chamaemorus – Cloudberry sketch.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 7. History of the project

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  • Bilberry
  • Lingonberry
  • Bearberry
  • Mountain crowberry
  • Cloudberry
  • Cloudberry
  • Bog bilberry
  • Bog bilberry
  • Small cranberry

Above are the seven plants I chose with trial pieces on vellum offcuts.

The species I chose, with common names also in English and Norwegian

  1. Rubus chamaemorus – cloudberry -multe
  2. Vaccinium oxycoccus subsp. microcarpum – small cranberry – tranebær
  3. Vaccinium uliginosum – bog bilberry – skinntryte
  4. Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum– Mountain crowberry – krekling
  5. Vaccinium myrtillus – bilberry – blåbær
  6. Vaccinium vitis-idaea – cowberry/lingonberry – tyttebær
  7. Arctostaphylos uva-ursi – bearberry – melbær

I have listed the plants in the order according to the type of ground in which they grow – from boggy to sandy:

  • The cloudberry and small cranberry often found intertwined together in the boggy moss of a swampy lake edge. 
  • The bog bilberry is more of a bush and guards the very marshy plants perching on rocks in the marsh. 
  • The Mountain crowberry grows in various areas from rocky outcrops at the edge of a swamp, to tiny examples without much soil, clinging to the rock on mountain tops.
  • The bilberry and cowberry are generally in a similar habitat in damp woods and forests; the cowberry can be the main plant on an old wood ant heap often with bilberry and mountain crowberry.
  • Bearberry grows in sandy areas on the edge of forests or creeping down over smooth rock.

The next stage of this blog goes into my working practice for this series. After which I will talk a little about each of the species and how I painted the final pictures. I will use the above order of plants as I would love others to learn more about them, where to find them and their uses. 

The next blog will be on 13 April 2023.

Foraging plants in the norwegian mountains – 5. History of the project

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Sketching from an old anthill.
Out sketching at Mølen a World Heritage site on the south east coast of Norway
Sketching in the back garden in the UK

Since moving back to Norway there have been two bumper years for Cloudberry fruit and this is why we have so much in the freezer now.

But back to my sketches that were incomplete right up until last summer (2022). This plant in particular is not easy to find if you don’t know exactly where to look, and even then you might miss the right period of time.

We took a couple of long day trips into the mountains to look, and we eventually found what was missing. As well as a lot of driving, I extended the workday when I got back home. The flowers don’t last long and whilst I had them, I needed to dissect and sketch with measurements before going to bed. 

Robin birdwatching

The typical demands to a botanical artist. But luckily during the summer months we have a lot of daylight hours in southern Norway – in fact around mid-summer the sky doesn’t really go dark. Birdwatching at midnight is different to say the least! The picture to the left is Robin birdwatching at 5 mins past midnight on the 12 June – still over a week to mid-summer!

The lesson learned? Make sure when sketching that you have the where-with-all to measure various aspects of your plant and to make accurate colour swatches.

Equipment for sketching outside

As you will see from the pictures at the top, sketching on location can have various problems, from ants still defending their old anthill, a very hard bottom rest and a helpful cat.

The anthills in the Norwegian forests can be huge, but so too can the ants. They have a large territory to look after and a lot of old wood to turn into something future generations of trees and ants can live off. But they do have a painful bite! One often finds several of the plant species I was considering, growing on them. One often finds lingonberry, bilberry and mountain crowberry, well established on them. It also suggests what some of the ants transport to their home.

When I am out sketching in nature I minimise the amount of equipment I have with me. I try to keep everything in the same sketchbook and for watercolour use a Stillman & Birn, Zeta series. It has stood up well to the battering it has had and takes the watercolour washes well. 

Normally I use a bum-bag when walking not too far and it will contain this kit:

Of course I go nowhere in the mountains without my mobile phone, but these days they are much more than a phone or safety net. The Victsing 3-in-1 mobile phone camera lens was introduced to me many years ago by Sarah Morrish and I use this to get the details not normally seen very well. In particular it enabled me to get a picture and draw the growing tip with flowers of the Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum (mountain crowberry) . I keep a small piece of mm paper with it to measure within the photos.

My palette is an old one with the original student colours removed and replaced with artist quality colours. I use transparent single pigment colours and normally have a couple of yellows and Quin Gold, Permanent Rose, Perylene Violet, Purple, A cold and warm blue and this time a single pigment green.

The pencils preferred are a 3B and HB as they are easy to lift if necessary, plus a single black fine liner pen. I only need to sharpen one of the pencils so have a sharpener to fit that. Otherwise travel brushes, ruler and erasers, magnifying glass, small water holder and kitchen towel. 

Sketching in the New Forest in the UK. I got a tick bite this time, but it wasn’t infected.
A dire warning; this is what happens when an infected tick bites. This is Robin’s leg last year.

If I take specimens with me, then I have a small plastic bag ready and can add some of my painting water. Sketching back in the cottage or at home means that I have all my equipment available.

I nearly forgot an important addition to the list above; Insect repellant because of the ticks, and sun screen, particularly here in Norway where the air is so clear.

The picture to the left is Robin’s leg last summer after a tick bite! We have a lot of dear and ticks, but doctors are very aware of the dangers and are quick to prescribe treatment.

A serious start on the series in 2017

My friend’s cottage at 800m over sea level.

By 2017 I still hadn’t decided which plants I was going to paint and this first year we borrowed a cottage from one of my oldest friends in Norway. The cottage was at about 850m over sea level. 

Around the cottage we found Rubus chamaemorus (cloudberry), bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), bog bilberry (Vaccinium uliginosum)and mountain crowberry (Empetrum nigrum subsp. hermaphroditum). This was a pretty good start. 

Notice that three of them were Vacciniums – from the heather family. In fact the Blueberries you buy in the shops are yet another species (Vaccinium corymbosum) but they are farmed and not included in my choice.

Importantly I hadn’t found a bearberry (Arcostaphylos uva-ursi) which was partly the reason for choosing to do this series.

But there were loads of other lovely flowers such as Heath spotted orchids, geraniums and various insectivorous plants such as the Common butterwort. There was also plenty of Andromeda polifolia (bog rosemary) in the moss and amongst the new Cloudberry leaves. When seeing it growing at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, I realised it was an opportunity to paint the species and the resulting picture resides in the Chelsea Physic Garden Florilegium collection.

Andromeda polifolia – Bog Rosemary

This continues on 6 April 2023

Foraging plants in the Norwegian Mountains – 2. History of the project.

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Preparing for rain – view from the cottage at Flatvollen near Haglebu.

As promised, this is the second part to the blog about my series of pictures – Foraging plants in the Norwegian Mountains. It will continue twice weekly until the RHS exhibition mid June 2023.

But what did make me choose this topic to study? It started at the workshop I had in Åsgårdstrand in 2014.

Cloudberry leaf and remnants of a male flower – sketch 2014

There were students from Norway, the USA and the UK, and I wanted them to get a feel for and learn about some of the plants that mean a lot to Norwegians. Funnily enough, like me, Norwegians take a lot of their fruit for granted and don’t know too much about them. I asked a botanist friend to get some plants when she was at her cottage in the mountains; she arrived with several, including cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus). This particular year she only found male flowers, but more about this later. At that point I didn’t know they were male flowers; I was just disappointed that none seemed to be fertilised and developing fruit.

As the students were mostly new to botanical art, it was unsurprising that no-one had any real interest in painting the cloudberry plant without the flowers in full bloom.

But all were thrilled by the range of wildflowers available and painted many they found whilst on walks in the neighbourhood. For my part, the cloudberry plant material was enough to kickstart my interest in studying it. Painting the sample available was the start of my obsession for Norwegian edible fruit; it continued until I finished the series of seven pictures in January 2023

Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) botanical exhibition planning

Magnolia x soulangeana flowers – 2011

Over the years the requirements for exhibiting with the RHS have changed. I had previously done two exhibits for the RHS botanical art shows and had medals from 2011 and 2014. In 2011, 8 pictures were required for each exhibit and in 2014 this was reduced to six although one could have more. When planning for my next exhibit I decided to do seven pictures as odd numbers are aesthetically more pleasing than even numbers.

I will be describing my progress with all seven pictures in my blog, although the exhibit requirements is now only six pictures. I felt Norwegian edible plants would be an ideal topic and had hoped to complete the series over the following three years, but ‘life’ got in the way. 

I was responsible for the UK representation during the Botanical Art Worldwide Exhibition in 2018. Scotland had their own exhibit.

My involvement in the worldwide exhibition happened quite suddenly when I realised that the UK would not be represented. I felt this was wrong as we had so many brilliant botanical artists. So I was determined to make it happen; Robin, my husband, suggested that if we got enough people interested, we should call ourselves the Association of British Botanical Artists (ABBA). Luckily, I was able to convince others and ABBA organised several successful events across the country representing UK botanical artists. 

During the build -up to the Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition, it became clear that there was a need for an organisation to welcome ‘Anyone, anywhere’ interested in botanical art. Up until then it could be quite expensive to learn about botanical art and membership of existing organisations was based on an individual’s level of expertise. Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE was also of a similar opinion and supported the idea – something that really meant a lot to me and my motivation for continuing my work to establish an organisation. 

The Association of Botanical Artists (ABA), now an international organisation, is still going strong. 

Malus ‘Gorgeous’ – 2014

Eventually, as I got back to planning my next RHS exhibit I recognised that there were some logistic problems. I lived in the UK and hadn’t planned to move back to Norway. Although some of the plants grew in high mountain areas in the UK, there were still some difficulties obtaining what I needed. For example, there were very few female cloudberry plants and therefore only a slim chance of getting material for either the female flowers or fruit. I therefore needed to get to Norway on a regular basis and knew that I could only do this once a year. 

I already had another workshop planned in Norway for 2015, so 2016 became the target for starting seriously with preparation sketches

Botanical art workshop at Åsgårdstrand

I realised that I wouldn’t be able to decide which part of the plants to focus on until I had done as many sketches as possible at different stages of development.

I would need to make careful notes about colour and size of specimens to aid my decision making. 

I will continue this story with a new blog on 26 March 2023.

An update: life and botanical art

Empetrum nigrum & tracing to vellum
| Gaynor's Flora

I have been working on four of my six or seven pictures to go to an RHS exhibition in London. This has been a very long-going saga as the process has been interrupted several times since I decided to do it.

Mountain area – home to the plant series.

After the last time I took part in the RHS exhibition in 2014 I decided that I was going to do a series of plants called ‘Foraging in the Norwegian Mountains’. Anyone who has read my blog, which more recently has been rather sporadic, will have heard me talk about the series on numerous occasions.

Whilst living on the South coast of England I travelled to Norway for two weeks each year to sketch the plants I had chosen. This was the only time I had them accessible although I had some similar plants in my garden in Bosham. I have to say that they didn’t flourish there – too warm.

But then other things got in the way;

Invitation to the England part of the Botanical Art Worldwide exhibition

2016-2018, I started up the Association of British Botanical Artists (ABBA) and managed the England entry to the Worldwide Exhibition in 2018.

2018. As founder and president, changed ABBA to a membership organisation

Support from Dr Shirley Sherwood who became the ABBA Patron
ABBA logo from 2019
ABBA logo 2016-2018

2019. By the middle of this year ABBA was well on its way as a recognised botanical art organisation and Elaine Allison took over managing the ABBA project completely. I thought, at last I would have time to paint. I had done some, but not as much as I would have liked and working on the Norwegian plants project had been limited to two weeks each year.

December 2019, Covid hit us all.

Before – Bosham in May – South coast England

Mid 2020. My daughter, living in Norway, expressed her anxiety for us if anything happened. What she actually said was that we were too old to live in England by ourselves and that it was about time we moved back to Norway. Robin, who had never lived in Norway, promised to learn the language and his son (who had just moved back to England) gave his blessing. The rest of 2020 became filled with house selling, packing, moving, home searching and buying – my daughter even coped with us living with her!!

After – Skoppum in May – Eastern Norway

Robin started to learn the language, but all the legal stuff in relation to officialdom and applying for residency in an EEC country, plus details in relation to house buying, fell to me. I managed to paint the Fly agaric – Amanita muscaria and a couple of sketches in my perpetual diary (painting cup half-full), plus continued to advise and mark assignments for my Botanical art online course students.

Long shadows at midday, a month after the sun turned.

January 2021 – we moved into our new home with a view of the Oslo fjord in the distance. The year was used to make the house into our home, although we had a lot to learn about what works here and what doesn’t. The garden is mostly rock, so planting is very much an ongoing trial as we battle with little earth and a temperatures that vary between -20˚C to +35˚C (warming climate). Botanical art is not as well thought of as in the UK, but once the lock-downs are over I already have quite a list of people wanting to do a botanical art workshop.

Icy walking is only safe with studs – but the kitten doesn’t care as long as there are laces!

Now I have to plan my botanical art work a little differently living in Norway. We have had snow since November last year but it hasn’t been quite as cold as last winter, although that can change. With recent thaws during the day and minus degrees at night, the snow turns to thick ice. This means I don’t have access to my plants during the winter so I had to change my working process.

‘Foraging in the Norwegian Mountains’ botanical art series on vellum.

NB; I won’t be showing you the finished compositions until they are shown at the RHS exhibition – probably 2023, but will show parts of them.

After all these time delays for the series, all I had was sketches and colour samples in my sketch book, plus some small studies on the vellum I would be using. I had heard the phrase ‘productive procrastination’ and thought I now knew what it meant!

Cloudberry – Multe- Rubus chamaemorus sample on vellum
Sketchbook drawing Crowberry – Krekling – Empetrum nigrum

I had worked out the composition of all of my pictures and how they would be hung as a group at the exhibition. Each picture will be on mounted vellum and shows the plants both enlarged in colour and actual size in graphite. Last summer I painted the colour part of four pictures so that I would have the actual plants and could match colour at the same time. I planned to do the graphite on those four paintings during this winter and so far have completed three of them – except for scale bars.

Graphite on vellum is not easy and depends upon the vellum, which, as a living material can change from one part to another. In some areas I have been able to use pencils, but in others a brush. My last two paintings have very tiny leaves and the last one, Empetrum nigrum which I will show part of here, has been a bit of headache!

Graphite drawing on vellum

With Empetrum nigrum the leaves actual size are about 2mm long and the unripe fruit is about 4mm. I have had to vary the hardness of the pencil used so that I get clean lines, rather than gritty ones. It doesn’t seem to matter if I use my most expensive pencils or not as it is the surface of the vellum that decides. Sometimes I use the pencil first, if too pale I paint a layer of water-soluble graphite on top, then finish off with another layer of pencil, finally lifting off loose graphite and ’fixing’ it with water. It certainly is not as straight forward as using graphite on paper.

This winter, only one more vellum picture to finish off with the graphite drawing. Spring is on its way, although the sun is still low on the horizon; plants will wake up after their winter rest; trips into the mountains to look forward to and planning for the colour part of the final three pictures.