The aesthetic beauty of botanical illustrations and paintings has fascinated and inspired people and myself for centuries. Beyond its visual appeal, botanical drawings help identify and understand plants in a timeless manner. Their original purpose was to aid in plant identification for medicinal and culinary uses. The beauty that is derived from a living botanical is usually short lived. My intention in this series is to capture the essence of the botanical miracles in paintings of mixed media. The painting on the canvas or panel can be enjoyed aesthetically for years to come. I incorporate painted small gems of dew drops or small insects on the foliage of the botanicals as my signature in my work. I have been inspired by nature throughout my travels around the world during the summers of my thirty years as an art educator. I have embraced a quote by the genius Georgia O’Keefe: “And so I said to myself - I’ll paint what I see - what the flower is to me, but I’ll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it”.
