Tina's Fine Art UK

Picture Profile 2305: Galanthus “Chantry Green Twins”.

Artist Code 2305. Galanthus “Chantry Green Twins”. Water colour on Aquarelle Arches 100% cotton paper 140lb. 10″ x 14″. Completed 11th April 2023

This is the fifth in a series of 12 paintings of snowdrops for the Iceni Botanical Artists Fullers Mill Project.

FLOWERS JANUARY EARLY FEBRUARY
This beautiful twin-flowered snowdrop was developed by Sue and Wol Staines from Glen Chantry near Wickham Bishops, Essex. Twin elegant, slender flowers of good shape are produced from each scape when mature and well grown (mostly single when young plants). Broad heart-shaped mark on the inner segments and green lines, varying in intensity, on the outer petals at the tip. The backs of leaves have a particularly prominent mid rib which is pale in colour and two flat darker colour lines either side. Most plants have two leaves with a flower stem, but some have three leaves and no flower, others three leaves and one or two stems. The extra long peduncle (the stalk which holds the flower) causes the flowers to “shimmer” in the breeze.

In January 2022, the Iceni Botanical Artists, IBA (of which I am a member, and Chair from November 2021–), decided that their next botanical project would be to paint a year of the flora and fauna in Fullers Mill Garden, West Stow, Suffolk, designed and planted by Bernard Tickner and his wife, Bess. It was decided that it should be a two-year project and completion of all artworks was set for 1st January 2024.

Annie Delbridge, head gardener (with permission from the Charity Perennial who now look after the garden) supplied the IBA with a list of plants which grow in the garden and the animals, birds, insects, fish etc., which live in or visit the garden. Iceni Artists have been free to choose which plants, vistas and fauna they would like to depict and it is hoped that we will hold an exhibition of all the artworks, as well as publishing a book with a selection of paintings.

My main task for the project is to paint 12 snowdrops – some rare, some not so, and others which are different, and most with a connection to East Anglia.