THE ILLUSTRATOR’S SKILL
From wildlife-filled landscapes to the tiny leaves of moss, no subject is too great or small for botanical artist Lizzie Harper
LEANING OVER AN angled desk in a garden studio on the outskirts of Hay-on-Wye, Powys, botanical artist Lizzie Harper is hard at work. She has been sitting in this same position for a couple of hours already and will remain so for another five or more. A mechanical pencil in her right hand and a purple-petalled lungwort cutting in her left, Lizzie is in the first stages of recording her subject.
Her hand moves with well-practised ease across her paper, outlining the five-petalled flower heads and the cordate leaves before going back to add the details, including the pollen-coated stamen and the soft fur of the stem, with the help of a tiny magnifying glass.
A botanical artist for almost three decades, Lizzie has developed quite the drawing formula. “I always begin with this quick 10 to 15-minute ‘habit’ sketch,” she says, releasing her pencil to wiggle her fingers. “Then I’ll add the venation, the main colours and, finally, pick out the finer details.”
Such meticulous attention to detail is something she has been fine-tuning from an early age. Growing up in Wolverhampton to a fine-artist mother and a nature-loving father, Lizzie recounts dissecting compost heaps and drawing the millipedes and other creepy crawlies she found. As a teenager, she moved with her family to Washington DC, where she volunteered in the invertebrate house of the local zoo and spent hours in her bedroom studying micro-organisms through a microscope, before returning to the UK to study zoology.
“I loved doing dissections; particularly the ‘sketching what we saw’ bit as we went along,” she says. “So, when my degree finished, and I was left wondering what to do, I decided to go to art school, focusing on natural history illustration, in Bournemouth.”
It was here that Lizzie found her true passion: drawing the details. So, while her classmates focused on large-scale paintings of lions and jungles, Lizzie honed in on the intricacies and multi-coloured palette of delicate beetle wings and flowering herbs.
“What art school really taught me was that drawing could be a full-time job,” she says. “It gave me the confidence and discipline to sit down and draw for the course of a working day and not just when inspiration struck.”
“The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does”
William Blake
Lizzie pauses and looks out of her studio window, where, directly ahead of her, an overgrown vegetable patch is now awash with randomly growing umbellifers, teasels, ox-eye daisies, echiums and scabious; a chaotic contrast to the order of her studio. It had been intended to be a personal muse, but with commissions continually coming in and bookings confirmed six months ahead, it is now a space where she can grow the plants clients ask her to draw the most.
“I started off drawing beetles, which I love because of the glitter and glamour of their wings and shells,” she says. “But the jobs became more botany based, and I’m glad they did. Plants never stop surprising me, so I learn something new on every job. Did you know that hogweed is monocarpic and only flowers once in its lifetime, for example?”
Painting for the public
Lizzie uses Stonehenge Aqua Hotpress paper because of its ability to hold colour and not bleed. She likes to use mechanical pencils, such as the Pentel P205, with an HB or an H lead, 0.3mm size.
Having accidentally slipped with her pencil, Lizzie picks up an eraser and makes a quick amend. “There is pressure to be 100 per cent accurate with everything I draw, particularly when creating identification guides and resources for general public use,” she says.
Lizzie created a set of illustrations for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust; a commission that, 23 years on, she still refers to as her ‘big break’. Her more recent publications include ID guides for the Field Studies Council and books The Hedgerow Handbook, Collins Flower Guide and The Bumper Book of Nature.
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the first steps Lizzie takes for any illustration is research.
“I try to hunt the plant down in the wild,” she says. “If I find it, I’ll ‘stop, drop and draw’, making a very basic annotated sketch and taking some photos on my phone as a record. I also use Google, reference books and social media. There’s a fantastic network of botanists on Twitter, for example, and they help me if I get stuck. Obviously, the best scenario is to have access to the real plant, so I can get a
“It’s attention to detail that makes the difference between average and stunning”
Francis Atterbury
360° view, but that’s not sometimes possible and can depend on the season or whether or not I’m able to find it. So resources are good alternatives.”
A colourful world
Initial sketch done, Lizzie turns to her Winsor & Newton watercolour paints. First, she picks out the darkest greens of her illustration before layering concentric circles in increasingly lighter greens. Next, she applies a pale, yellowish wash. Finally, she picks out the darkest of the dark shades using her smallest brush, a Winsor & Newton Series 7 ‘000’; a size which is ideal for fine detail such as insect antennae and minute plant hairs.
“Mine is arguably not the most traditional method,” admits Lizzie. “Other illustrators start pale and layer on darker shades. But I find if you do it that way, you end up with a more obvious road map to your working process. I joke that I’m just really good at colouring in.”
She replaces her brushes every month. “You want a sharp tip for detail: they wear down over time,” she says.
Lizzie will often move between projects. While waiting for one layer to dry, she might begin the drawing stage for another specimen, share photos of her work on social media or scan a finished artwork, such as a recent depiction of a yellow horned poppy, into her computer for saving.
“There are some colours which are really hard to mix,” she adds. “One example is primrose yellow, which I struggle to get just right. Add water, and the colour ends up too washed out; add white, and it looks too heavy. Forget-me-not blue is also hard. For those, I might add a drop of hydrus ink to get that vibrancy of colour.”
Mistakes at this stage are corrected using permanent white gouache, which Lizzie is happy to admit to. “People like to know you’re human. I make mistakes all the time.”
Labour of love
From start to finish, each artwork takes approximately eight to 10 hours to complete, including one or two hours of research. The radio and podcasts on topics ranging from biology to politics keep Lizzie company; a daylight lamp provides steady illumination as the sun traverses the sky; and pink, fluffy slippers keep her comfortable in cooler months.
The final layer of paint applied, Lizzie begins to pack up. “Certain stages of the painting process can’t be left part way through; if I’m applying a wet wash of colour, for example,” she says. Fortunately, her husband, Andy, and their two children, Bill and Enid, are patient.
“I get into a zone when I’m painting,” says Lizzie. “I might have been here for four hours and just done a leaf. Time loses all meaning. So, when I cross the garden and enter the kitchen, life comes crashing in, but in a way that I like. Ordering the children new shoes, talking about school: it’s grounding. I also do a lot of yoga,” she laughs, stretching out of her desk hunch.
In her spare time, Lizzie is also keen to illustrate a map of the plants she has drawn over the years. “I now know where so many wild flowers can be found, both locally and around the UK,” she says. “I would love to share that with others and show everyone how wonderful plants really are, even the ones that look like garden weeds.”