A fascination for leaves, buds and flowers…

“Every leaf speaks bliss to me, Fluttering from the autumn tree”

-Emily Bronte

Endlessly variable, beautiful and sometimes strange. From pine needles to palms, Annie has always loved the immense variety of scale, shape, structure, colour and texture of leaves.

Botanical Illustration

Here are a few of her botanical illustrations showing the interest in detail and colour.

Botanical illustration is in many ways like the ‘painting-up’ or, to use a more modern term, ‘rendering’ of jewellery designs. You must know the way things will look in order to show the customer - or the goldsmith making it - exactly what you have envisaged.

Understanding how an item will be made, and how thick or thin the metal components will be, is vital. Annie worked ‘at the bench’ making jewellery for many years, so she has the insight and experience to provide this detail and accuracy.

In Botanical Illustration, the plants should always be painted from live examples so that the artist can see and capture every fine detail. This helps it look real and scientifically accurate – photos just don’t capture enough. In this case, however, the jewellery designs come first and so it isn’t possible to ‘paint from real life’. An almost impossible task!

Background: The Ginkgo Tree

Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo and also known as the ginkgo tree or the maidenhair tree, is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyt, all others being extinct. It is found in fossils dating back 270 million years.

The flesh of the Gingko tree fruit smells unpleasant, which belies the beauty of the tree! Due to this smell, when they are used as street decoration only male trees are planted.