Tina's Fine Art UK

Picture Profile 2306: Galanthus plicatus “Yaffle”.

Artist Code 2306. Galanthus plicatus “Yaffle”. Water colour on Aquarelle Arches 100% cotton paper 140lb. 10″ x 14″. Completed 24th April 2023

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

FLOWERS NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER
This robust, early flowering snowdrop has puckered outer segments; the ovary and inner marking are a very pale lime-green. Light green ovary and markings. Petals have a seersucker texture. This little clump is the actual plant pattern growing at Fullers Mill Garden (December 2023). It is rare so live resource material was very limited. However, I made a tiny pencil sketch and noted other features in order to complete this painting later. On the right hand side you will notice a plant “anomaly” – two stems fused together resulting in a head of four flowers, three coming from the same stalk and one separately but still joined to the two fused main stems. The close-ups below left of the main picture show the underside of this flower head and the fused pieces of plant. All the buds appeared to be very plump. The leaves have a pale stripe down the centre with darker green each side (front and back). The mid rib of the under-leaf is very prominent and has a similar rib each side of it, though these are not so prominent and they range in colour from pale yellow to pale green. This snowdrop is more yellow-green than the usual blue-green.

Galanthus plicatus “Yaffle” (No. 6)

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.