Calm Before the Storm
Watercolor Mounted on Board and Sealed
6" x 6"
SOLD
I created a few new mushroom paintings recently and a collector that owns two in that series contacted me to add to her collection to group four of them together. The more people that see this series, I learn that I am not the only mushroom fanatic out there! When I went to Montreal this summer I happened upon a shop that caters to nothing but mushrooms. They had dried to purchase for cooking, mushroom kits to grow your own, field guides and all sorts of accouterment for collecting while foraging for them. That was just the tip of the ice burg.
In the Thick of It
Watercolor Mounted on Board and Sealed
6" x 6"
As of this writing is currently available at the 6" Squared Show at the Randy Higbee Gallery, Costa Mesa, CA
McCoy's Mushrooms
Watercolor Mounted on Board and Sealed
6" x 6"
SOLD
On my birthday I was gifted a wonderful book, The Art of Beatrix Potter: Sketches, Paintings and Illustrations. It covers the history on how her famed Peter Rabbit series came to be, plus many tidbits about her art career and life. One of my most vivid childhood memories is when I had learned to read and started to check out books from my local public library. I devoured every tiny little green volume of Potter’s Peter Rabbit series and read them multiple times.
Mycoboutique in Montreal, Canada
Beatrix did so much more than write and illustrate these classic stories. Being from a wealthy family, the Potters took holidays every summer to various parts of the United Kingdom. The book is organized in sections geographically to give one the idea of what areas influenced her stories and art. Scotland played a significant role. It was there she became somewhat of a scientist and met Charles MacIntosh a well known amateur naturalist. Avoiding the strict formalities of Victorian society they established a long friendship and a study of Mycology (the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi).
Even after her return to London they would exchange notes on their observations of mushrooms. He would send her samples which resulted in beautifully rendered illustrations of mushrooms and her lengthy study of fungus. She spent many hours on location observing and creating stunning botanical illustrations in watercolor of the mushrooms and fungus she found and observed in their natural setting. She not only captured the mushroom itself but also it’s surrounding environment.
Between 1894 and 1895 in a period of just one year she produced, seventy-three fungi illustrations and the following year fifty-two microscopic illustrations. Through her extensive observations and studies she came away with some remarkable discoveries. She tried to present her findings to the principals at the exclusive Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, to only be dismissed because she was a woman. For another three years she would research spore germination, authoring a paper that was read to the male-dominated Linnean Society, they still refused to publish her findings. She had hoped that her illustrations and findings would be published as a book, to no avail she carefully stored all of her paintings and research.
Seventy years later, a former president of the British Mycological Society discovered Potter’s treasure trove of illustrations of mushrooms, plants and fossils, and selected fifty-nine drawings for the Wayside & Woodland series, Fungi volume. Ironically published by Warne, the same publisher as her Peter Rabbit series of books. Many of her findings on spore germination that were dismissed were found to be true.
Links:
Book: The Art of Beatrix Potter: Sketches, Paintings and Illustrations
Movie: Miss Potter