Monday 16 February 2015

Valerie Richard's painting in the Exhibition

Last year we ran a series of interviews with artists involved with the Beckler's Botanical Bounty Project. We hung many of those  paintings in our Exhibition in Menindee last year. Over the next few weeks we would like to show you blog posts of some of the finished works on display.


Valerie Richards has painted some of the eremophilas that were collected by Dr. Beckler. They are wonderful plants, commonly known as emu bushes. In her interview Valerie describes Eremophila sturtii and what attracted her to paint this dainty flower.

It has an absolute profusion of lilac, pink and cream flowers. It was these colours that attracted me at first. From a distance it looks like a green shrub. As you get to close to it you see the beautiful flowers. The impact of the colours was such a surprise. The shrub is symmetrical, attactive shape. It grows to 1 to 2 metres.
The full interview with Valerie is here.
Valerie's painting, the work in progress
You can see from the photo of her painting as it hung in the Exhibition (below right), her finished work included the habitat of E. sturtii, with the bush as well.

Left: Plantago drummondii; Right: E. sturtii (Art work copyright: Valerie Richards 2013)
By the time of the Exhibition Valerie had completed five paintings, the two above and three below. And they all looked stunning!
Left: E. deserti Right: Senna artemisioides subsp. x sturtii (Art work copyright: Valerie Richards 2013)
Arabidella trisecta (Art work copyright: Valerie Richards 2013)
Valerie's work hanging together 

Evelyn Brandt's painting in the Exhibition

Last year we ran a series of interviews with artists involved with the Beckler's Botanical Bounty Project. We hung many of those  paintings in our Exhibition in Menindee last year. Over the next few weeks we would like to show you blog posts of some of the finished works on display.


Evelyn Brandt loves the tiny detail of plants. Her microscopic drawings show us why botanic art straddles the artistic and scientific worlds and has such an important place in botany. Each magnified element of the reproductive parts helps to identify the plant while creating a wonderful work of art.

The full interview with Evelyn is here, but as a reminder, this is what she said about why microscopic work is so important:
At the moment I am really interested in microscopic work. I want to understand the important botanic characteristics that define the species. The key characteristic for this one, Chenopodium cristatum, is the perianth. This is part of the flower. There are 5 perianth segments that encapsulate the seed, which you can only see under the microscope. It is the characteristics of the perianth that define it and differentiate it from the other chenopodium species.
In the full interviewEvelyn details how she has developed her own process for doing such fine, detailed botanic art work.

Evelyn's work in progress


The painting of Chenopodium cristatum is not the only one Evelyn has been painting. In the Exhibition she had four works and each one showed her beautiful, detailed work.


L to R: Tetragonia moorei, Chenopodium cristatum (Art work copyright: Evelyn Brandt)
L to R: Centipedia cunninghamii; Casuarina pauper (Art work copyright: Evelyn Brandt)
And Evelyn's work hanging in the Exhibition
Hanging together (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2014)


Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2014

Sunday 8 February 2015

Lorraine Looney's painting in the Exhibition

Last year we ran a series of interviews with artists involved with the Beckler's Botanical Bounty Project. We hung many of those  paintings in our Exhibition in Menindee last year. Over the next few weeks we would like to show you blog posts of some of the finished works on display.


Lorraine Looney, a Menindee resident, has been a stalwart of the Project. We interviewed her in 2013. The full interview is here, but this is a little, telling us how she came to be involved:
As a councillor for the Central Darling Shire I was involved with the 150 year anniversary of the Burke and Will Expedition. We had a reinactment. When that was over I saw a piece in the school news about the open days of this project [Beckler's Botanical Bounty Project]. So I had to come and have a look! Looking at what everyone was doing was fascinating. People were looking under microscopes and identifying species.
Each year I have come back to say hello.

 But she has more than said "hello". She has drawn one of the plants on Beckler's list.
One year I was encouraged to draw my own flower. It was Verbena africana -- the simple one! Mali gave me the choice of the verbena or the warrigal greens (Tetragonia tetragonioides). I chose the verbena because it was less complicated. It is a medicinal plant, so it interested me as well.
We were delighted that Lorraine wanted to exhibit her work in the Exhibition. This is her work hanging in the Darling River Art Gallery.
Verbena africana -- Artist: Lorraine Looney (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson 2014)

As Lorraine told us in the interview she is has a fascination for collage, creating images of the plants from the area using recycled materials. Her work attracted a lot of interest at the Exhibition.
Lorraine's collage of plants of the area (Photo copyright: Anne Lawson, 2014)