1001 Flag Iris and Friends

Botanical Illustration. Artist Code: 1001. Completed September 2010. Original SOLD. Life-size oil on stretched canvas. Unframed size 36” x 28”

Private Sale, July 2010.

Flag Iris—Iris versicolor; Robin—Erithacus rubecula; Garden Snail—Helix aspersa; Hedgehog—Erinaceus europaeus.

These beautiful flags grow under my neighbour’s hedge and every year provide a wonderful splash of colour in the spring. Both our gardens share the hedgehog. Robins nest in their territories nearby, and the fledglings hide and meld into all sorts of places! Snails live amongst the protruding tubers that interlace on the ground.

This painting was sold before it was completed. I was using the painting to demonstrate how I paint in oils for visitors to my Cambridge Open Studio event in July 2010. A family came in with the intention of commissioning me to paint a portrait of the children. But the whole family liked the sketch and preliminary painting so much that they returned in October to purchase the finished artwork.

Poem:

This life-size canvas, done with oils
Points up Mother Nature’s foils
As hedgehog gollops slimy snails
And worms in beak show some entrails
With pleas for meals by mother’s love
The anxious baby looks above