0701 Jade Vine With Bat
SOLD to private buyer August 2017. Botanical Illustration. Artist Code: 0701. Completed August 2006. Original. Life size oil on box cotton canvas. Unframed size 12″ x 48″.
This painting was glazed and originally housed in a handmade light beech-wood frame measuring 14″ wide x 50″ tall, with 1″ acid-free cream mount backdrop.
I decided to take it out of the frame and offer it for sale in its original box canvas condition (12” x 48”). Drawn on location, courtesy of Cambridge Botanic Gardens in March 2006, I spent two days drawing field notes and taking photographs and mixing the correct colours for application in the final painting. I tried to find out more about this exotic plant, which grows in the tropical jungles, but could not find out much—only that it is fertilized by flower bats—hence the furry friend in the tops.
This painting was a finalist in the BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year competition 2009. However, upon close inspection of the rules and regulations, I had to withdraw it because it had not been painted within the previous year, and it was also too big!!
I also painted another picture in 2012, using my field notes and sketches as a guide, though this time in water colour, details of which can be viewed under Artist Code: 1201. This picture also made it through to the finals of the 2012 BBC Wildlife Artist of the Year Competition, endangered species category.
Poem:
Have you ever seen
Such a lovely shade of green
A Jade vine in all its glory
A flower bat in upper storey
Not from tropical forest, you’ll pardon!
But from Cambridge’s Botanic Garden
