Kew Gardens, photos and paintings from plants.

I usually manage at least one trip a year to Kew Gardens. Often this is a school trip with masses of students taking photos and doing sketches. Or sometimes a more leisurely relaxed trip without them...


I especially like to see the giant tropical plants in the Palm House, and the Princess of Wales conservatory. I have taken a lot of photos of succulents and bromeliads. I love their solid architectural shapes, and the way the light casts great shadows through parts of the plant. 

I find these really inspirational as the starting point for a painting. I rarely copy them, exactly as they are. I think the photos do them justice, so am looking for something a bit extra and different in a painting.

Here are a couple of paintings I did a few years ago. They are quite straightforward in terms of the shapes of the leaves, but I just changed the colour a bit......

The following two I have really gone a bit crazy with the colours, but they are fun to look at and were interesting to paint. One is a direct copy of the orange/yellow one above, as I loved the balance of shapes so much, I used the same composition.