Christine Stephenson

One of Britain’s top Botanical Artists and the winner of Gold and Silver medals from the Royal Horticultural Society. Her work is in many collections around the world including that of the international archive of Botanical Art and Illustration at the Hunt Institute, Pittsburgh, USA.

Christine paints botanically accurate and minutely detailed plant portraits in watercolour. She has said her paintings ‘are concerned with intense observation and an expression of the dramatic reality of the subject. I use rich colours and tones and the image is strongly realistic, but suspended on a pure white background.’

She begins by drawing her subject using a magnifying glass, including every detail even to the pollen on every stamen. Still using the magnifying glass Christine starts to paint, working in quite dry and very thin washes to build up the colours gradually. Over the following days layer upon layer of paint is built up. The whole process may take anything from two to six weeks.

Christine trained as an artist and taught for many years in London schools, later taking a course in botanical illustration with the much respected botanical artist Christobel King, who worked for Kew Gardens. For many years she has provided the illustrations for ‘The Plantsman’s Handbook’ from Wootten’s of Wenhaston. Every year she goes to Chelsea to order tulips, her favourite plants.

Snow Parrot

Rococco

Estelle Rijnveld

Black Parrot