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Welcome to botanicalwatercolours.co.uk where you will find a selection of Natasha Reece’s watercolours.
Click on the ‘Gallery’ pages to view the paintings.
Botanical art
Contemporary botanical art has its roots in the much older tradition of botanical illustration. For many centuries plants have been carefully recorded and depicted, primarily for their symbolism and their medicinal properties. The herbals and the richly-illustrated prayer books of the Middle Ages all celebrated, in different ways, the beauty of the natural world. But it was Europe’s growing fondness for flowering garden plants which, in the 16th century, ushered in the golden age of botanical painting.
The painters of this period were as much scientists as artists, and bequeathed a tradition of intense observation and attention to detail to later generations of illustrators. In the beautiful records of plants species — florilegium — flowers were portrayed with astonishing accuracy and beauty. The aim was, and still is, to copy nature as closely as possible.
Today, watercolour continues to be the chosen medium among botanical artists - the transparency of delicate watercolour washes faithfully capturing the subtlety found in nature.
Botanical artists generally draw and paint from life, using photographs mainly for reference, and this life-like quality comes across in their paintings. The delicately-shaded colours and the intricate representations of details, such as veining, are just two of the elements which reveal a meticulous observation of nature.
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