The Elder Sambucus nigra is common in hedgerows and woodland, and appears as a shrub as often as a tree.  It has strongly scented blossoms in spring, deep purple berries in autumn, and pale wood.

There’s an enormous amount of folklore associated with this species, and it’s a firm favourite with both foragers and those interested in herbal remedies.

Identification: Tree shape

Elder grows as trees up to 10m, or as shrubs.  Branches are often curved, and the wood is brittle.  Elder trees have short trunks or “boles”.  Compared to other tree species, elder don’t have loads of branches, and these grow from low down.

Elder tree

You often see Elder trees in thickets or scrubby woodland, or growing alongside streams with a variety of other species.  If an Elder is given space and light, it’ll grown into a tree.

Elder shrubs are common too as the species shows in both growth habits.  Lots of branches emerge at ground level, forming a thicket of a bush.

This species loves nitrogen-rich habitats, and will colonise anywhere where people have lived, or where nitrogen levels are high in the soil (such as fields where animals have been grazed).  It grows fast, and establishes itself quickly.  If you see a tree growing from a wall or in a farmyard, it’s very likely to be an Elder.

Identification: Leaves

Elder leaves are compound, that is made of lots of leaflets (for more on leaf shape, check out my blog).  In this case, there are 5 to 7 leaflets, with one terminal leaflet.  Leaflets are opposite each other.  Although the leaves have a relatively long stalk, each individual leaflet lies close to the stem.  Each leaflet is 3 to 9 cm long.

Elder leaf and pencil study

The leaves of Elder are oval and a bright pale green.  They’re toothed along the margins. (Click here for my blog on leaf veins and margins).

Elder branch with two compound leaves (each made of five leaflets)

The venation of the leaves isn’t very obvious, and is rather similar to that of lots of other oval leaves.  Side veins branch from the central mid-rib, and are mostly opposite one another.

Elder leaves

Some people think Elder leaves smell nasty, and although they do let off a pungent odour when bruised, I wouldn’t call it unpleasant.

Identification: Flowers

The creamy froth of elder flowers is instantly recognizable, by smell as well as by sight.  The smell is a heady perfume, and one of my favourite scents of summer.

Flowers cover the tree or shrub, borne in flat-headed umbels. Each umbel is 10 to 20 cm across; individual flowers are 5mm across.  Looking into the branching structure, you can see there are five main rays to each umbel.

Sketchbook study figuring out flower growth pattern

The flowers are closely packed, and have cream or white petals.  Anthers are a creamy colour too.  Each individual flower has five rounded petals, and 5 stamens.  Anthers protrude beyond the petals, helping the umbel look even frothier.

Small flies pollinate the flowers, which may explain why the scent of the blossom is so heady and heavy.  Elderflowers appear in May or June and will be in flower for 4 to 6 weeks.

Individual elder flowers

Identification: Fruit

Elderberries are shiny and black when fully ripe.  The branches they’re borne on are frequently flushed dark magenta.  Unripe berries are crimson.  Each berry is square-ish, and very juicy.

Sketchbook study of elder berries

It’s really common to see elder berries in partial umbels – lots of the berries will have fallen off or been eaten; the remainders look scruffy because of the empty stalks along side them.  They last well into late autumn, eventually shrivelling or falling in the frosts.

Working on an elderberry illustration

The berries are very rich in vitamin A and C and provide a vital food supply for birds and small mammals.  However, they are also quite sour, and both leaves and berries are rich in Hydrogen cyanide.  This can cause vomiting in people.  For a fascinating look at poisons in our everyday foods, check out this BBC Future article I stumbled on.

Identification: Bark

The bark of an elder tree is thick, smooth and corky; deep ridges develop with age. The branches are smooth, with pithy insides.  This pith can be removed to leave a hollow twig, and elder wood has been used for centuries to make whistles and musical instruments.

Twigs have obvious lenticels and are thick and greyish, or greenish.

The jelly ear fungus Auricularia judae is a brownish jelly-like fungus that often grows on elder and I use it as another way to identify the species.

Similar species

Some other tree species also have frothy white blossoms.  The Rowan does, but the flowers are far less scented, and the tree rarely grows as a shrub.  Guelder rose also has panicles of white flowers, but these are much larger blossoms and the leaves are a totally different shape.  The berries are orange and scarlet, never black.  However, as Guelder rose also forms a shrub, it’s worth a mention.

Guelder rose Viburnum opulus

Ash Fraxinus excelsior, Walnut Juglans regia, and Rowan Sorbus aucuparia  also have compound leaves, but the walnut leaves are arranged in an alternate pattern.  Ash leaves have more obvious veins and feel less “flat” than elder.  Rowan leaves are smaller and sharper.  All have toothed margins, but with a little experience you’ll notice differences between the shape and sharpness of the teeth.

Ash twig and leaves Fraxinus excelsior

History: Folklore

Like Hawthorn and Rowan, Elder is alive with folklore and history.  It’s interesting that all three of these trees produce highly visible white blossoms and distinctive colourful berries.  I guess they were easily recognized, common, and therefore very much in people’s awareness for millenia.

Elder has long been associated with “the little people”, and those who believe in faery folk will be very familiar with it.  If you were lucky, you might see the Queen of the Fairies passing by under an elder on Midsummer eve.  Lots of references advise against sleeping under an elder; this also relates to belief in other-worldly peoples.

Elder shrub

If you had to chop down an elder tree, you were supposed to ask permission from the Elder mother, a female spirit that inhabited the tree.

It was seen as a protective tree, and would be planted near houses and dairies.  Cheese cloths would be hung to dry on elder branches, and it was thought to prevent the milk form turning.  Interestingly, the elder leaves do repel flies, so these beliefs could have contributed to the hygiene of the dairy.  Herdsmen would carry elder switches.

Elder berries and leaves

However, there was a darker side.  A child beaten with an elder stick would never grow.  Judas Iscariot was said to have hung himself from an elder tree, and criminals were crowned with elder as a symbol of their shame.  Again on a Christian theme, there was a suggestion that the cross on which Jesus was crucified was elder wood.  It was not to be brought into the house, and if you burnt it you were sure to see the devil.  Witches could transform themselves into Elder.

The rule of thumb was to treat the elder with a healthy dose of respect.  And caution.

History: Food

The flowers of the elder can be used to make a lovely scented champagne, or fried as fritters.

Once heated, the berries can be reduced into deliciously strong-flavoured jams and jellies and syrups.

Illustrating elder berries

Flowers and berries are made into drinks and cordials.  Until 1900 you could buy spiced elderberry wine in the streets of London.

The most famous elder drink is the spirit Sambucca, made from elder berries and aniseed.  Traditionally, this is presented with one coffee bean and is set on fire as it’s served.

History: Medicine

Most parts of the elder have been used for medicine.  There’s some suggestion that even the ancient Egyptians used elderberries medicinally.  The medieval herbalist John Evelyn described elder as, “a kind of Catholicon against all Infirmities whatever”.

Berries are high in vitamins C and A, and (once you’ve destroyed the hydrogen cyanide by heating) are used to cure a plethora of conditions.  Sore-throats, coughs, respiratory problems – all were treated with elderberry syrup or “rob”.  They’re also a laxative, and diuretic.

The bark is a strong purgative.  Leaves can be crushed into poultices that are applied to bruises, sprains, and chill-blains.

Flowers are dried into tea and used to treat colds.  You can also wash your face in water soaked with elderflower to preserve your youthful looks.  Even today, elderflower is used in eye and skin lotions.  Some say that if you soak elderflower in cold water it helps relieve symptoms of hay-fever.

Adele Nozedar, whose books I illustrate, foraging for elderberries

Elder is rich in anthocyanins and antioxidants, both of which are known to boost the immune system.

Uses

There is a lot of pith in elder branches, which means when you hollow them out they make good musical instruments.  Children made small toys and penny whistles from elder wood.  The wood was also used to make pipes, pea-shooters and bellows.  Small spoons, and combs were sometimes made from elder wood.

The pith was used as a blotter, and to hold botanical specimens whilst they were being prepared for microscope slides or botanical sections.

Elder berries and leaves

Harder mature elder wood was sometimes made into cogs for machines.

The leaves contain natural fly repellent which probably explains why they were so often planted near houses and stables.

Finally, the elder is really useful as it produces a whole variety of different dyes.  The leaves give a green hue, flowers produce a lilac colour.  The berries make for deep and fade-resistant black and purples.  And even the bark was used to make black dye, used either for dying wool or ones hair.  The highly esteemed Harris tweed used elder to dye its’ materials, even though elder trees are less common in northern Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

Elder: Wildlife

The berries are eaten by birds and mammals, and the leaves are food for the Buff ermine, dot, White-spotted pug, and Swallow-tail moth caterpillars.  Insects drink the nectar from the flowers.  Voles and dormice eat flowers and berries.

Field vole Microtus agrestis

Threats

Luckily, not too many things threaten this amazing tree.  Red spider mites can suck the sap of the tree, and blackfly damage leaves.

Conclusion

Elder is an extraordinarily adaptable plant.  It’s been associated with Jesus, witches and fairies.  It can bring good or bad luck.  Berries are poisonous but can be made into delicious syrups.  The flowers can be eaten, used as a beauty treatment, or used against colds.  Elder wood makes toys, cogs, and instruments.  Personally, what I love most about elder is the smell when the flowers are out.  The buzzing of flies, the heavy scent in the air, and the rustle of leaves in a gentle breeze.  It sums up summer for me.

Jersey Post Fruits and Berries stamp issue copyright Jersey Post 2019

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Trees for life, and Naturespot.  Book references for this blog include Adele Nozedar’s The Tree Forager, the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies, and the Reader’s Digest “The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain” (out of print but commonly available second-hand).

The post Trees: Elder appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

I recently completed an illustration of Bracken Pteridium aquilinum for a forthcoming Field Studies Council Guide to the flora of Woodlands.  I thought this was the perfect chance to explain the process.

Drawing bracken and Pencil roughs

Bracken is a large plant, some plants stretch to over 2m tall.  The leaves or fronds are sub divided, and each division is divided again.  this is called being tri-pinnate.  And it’s beastly to draw!  Reducing this complexity and size to a sheet of A4 paper is a challenge.

I took two approaches, and drew two versions.  One had the bracken in a clump, as it grows in the wild.

Bracken rough 1

The second shows two separate fronds and made more of the root structure.  This meant working from photos as well as filling my studio with bracken.  Photos are mighty useful for reducing a plant to a manageable size.  However, to guarantee getting the botanical detail correct, you need the plant itself, or at least close up photos.  (For more on working form photo reference, check out my blog).  The client chose this second rough, which I think was the right choice.

Bracken rough 2

Adding colour

So you have your pencil drawing ready yo go.  Surely this is where the hard work begins?  Well, no.

The very fact that the drawing of the bracken was so difficult now works in your favour.  there’s an enormous amount of detail in the drawing.  this means that there are very few large expanses of colour.  It’s these areas that end up needing the hard work.  They require attention to show the lights and darks, and to add texture.

With complicated structures like the bracken, you need do far less to get a good result.

First step is to mix the right green.  In this case I’m using Winsor and Newton watercolour paints.  To get the right green, it’s a mix of Cadmium yellow light, purple, Yellow ochre, Sap green, Cobalt green, and some greenish blue like Pthalo.   Keep mixing until it matches the frond in your hand.

Then all you do is go over your pencil lines with a thin and confident paintbrush line.  Brushes that hold their tips well, like my beloved Winsor & Newton series 7 (number 1) are ideal.  To make sure your lines are crisp, work on a smooth, hot-press paper.  Currently, I’m loving Fluid 100.

Bracken illustration with leaf edges outlined in green. Areas remaining to be outlined will be done in a slightly lighter shade of green.

If you want to add a little extra dimension to the illustration, you can mix two greens.  Make one somewhat lighter than the other.  I do this by adding yellow.  Then choose which side of your frond is the lighter.  Outline these leaves in the same way as before, but this time with the lighter shade. Keep the side of leaf which is lighter consistent across the plant, but be aware it may “flip” as you cross the main stem of the frond.

Tackling stems

You can put in the stems whenever you feel like it.  Sometimes I add them quite early as it ties the illustration together.  Mix a slightly brownish yellow-green.  Outline the stems, with a little more weight to the right side of each stem.  Then dilute your mix with water to make it paler.  Once the stem outlines are dry, paint over the stems with this dilute mix.  You should have stems which look a little darker on the right hand side.  Again, this adds to the feeling of light and shade in the illustration.

Once dry, you may want to add other colours to the stem.  For bracken, this would include the dark brown which appears at the base of the stems.  This needs to be included as it’s species specific.  other ferns may have flaky scales at the base of their stems.  Be sure to include these if they’re present.

Stem completed, returning to the leaves.

Adding body colour to the fronds

Once the outlines are dry, you can add colour.  Mix up a more watery green than before.  Tackling one side of each frond at a time, just paint this on top of your fern.  Allow the paint to be nice and wet.  As it dries, it’ll add its own crisp edges to your outlines and sharpen up the illustration.  Be sure not to do both sides at once.  If the wet paint runs into other areas, it wont look as sharp when it dries.

In the illustration below, the top of the fronds on left hand side have been outlined in a slightly darker green.  The top wash is also been a little darker.  The opposite side of each leaf has a lighter and slightly more yellow colour.  This difference in colour tricks the eye into thinking that the two sides are slightly curled upwards, with one side casting its shadow on the other.  it makes the plant look less flat.

On the other side of the main stem (rachis), flip the pattern of shadows.

I’ve also added some darker green to the areas of the stem which overlap.  Again, this is to add depth to the illustration.

Top washes on the fern are drying

Where the fronds of the bracken leaf overlap, I’ve picked out the shadows in a darker shade of green.  I mix this by adding browns, blues, or purples to the mix.  Be careful with this darker shade, you want it to represent shadow, not to look like the main colour of the plant.

Adding Shadows

Once completely dry, you can add even more definition to the fern by picking out your darkest darks with really quite a deep colour.  I tend to use a mix of purple with cobalt blue.  Be judicious with these dark shades, and remember you’re adding them to add tonality and clarity, not just to muddy and darken the picture.

You can also add the same colour to pick out the darkest shadows on the roots.

Completed Bracken illustration with darkest darks added.

Finished!

And really, that’s it.  If the differences between the sides of the leaves looks too stark, you can add a dilute green top wash to unify them.  If they look too pale, revisit and add another layer of wet green.

Compared to the huffing and puffing involved in getting the leaves of something like a rose or a hazel illustrated, this is a walk in the park.

The drawing is definitely challenging.  But when it comes to the “colouring in”, the intricate details turn our to be your allies.

Bracken Pteridium aquilinum with detail

Other examples

Below are some other examples of ferns done using the exact same approach.

The Hard fern has also had the blunt leaf tips darkened a little with a we-tish mix of cobalt blue.

Hard fern Blechnum spicant

The Male scaly fern (below) has also had a darker shadow laid along the right hand side of the central axis.  This helps draw the eye up the plant.  You can see the same approach we discussed above clearly.  The top of each small frond is darker on one side than the other.  And once you cross the central axis, that pattern flips.

Scaly male fern Dryopteris affinis

With the Maidenhair spleenwort below, a midrib was added to each leaf.  Each leaf was outlined.  It had a midrib painted in.  A flat top-wash of green was added.  And that was it.  In this example I didn’t even need to play about with lighter or darker shades of green.  I just made the leaves at the back of the plant darker by popping a blueish brown shadow on them.

Maidenhair spleenwort Asplenuum trichomanes

Feel free to give it a try.  You might be surprised by how easy it is.  As the for the drawing of any ferns though, I’m afraid that part of the job is just really hard work!

The post Illustrating Bracken and Ferns appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Starting out

Begin with a decent pencil illustration of your subject.  No need for any shading or tonal detail, but an accurate line pencil drawing is required.

I use a Pentel P205 mechanical pencil for this, with an H or HB lead.  The paper I draw onto is Daler Rowney Heavyweight cartridge, which works well for pencil and for ink.  Pens are Unipin, and I have them with an 0.05, 0.1, 0.2. and 0.5mm width nibs.

Using the 0.1 or 0.2 nib pen, literally go over the pencil lines with ink.  Where the lines are less heavy (such as on the end of a leaf vein) break up the line into dots or smaller lines.  This allows the eye to accept that part of the image is “fading out”.

Pencil drawing of the Downy birch with pen poised for action

Pen lines: How much detail?

When you’re doing this, you don’t want to be thinking about lights and darks yet.  Just shape.  Sometimes, the nature of what you’re drawing will mean areas appear darker.  You can see this with the catkin below.  because there’s lots of detail, the catkin looks darker.

You can choose how much detail you add to any drawing.  Certainly at this stage, you don’t want to overcomplicate the picture.  The white areas of paper are important, you want to be sure you don’t swallow them up.  It’s quite a personal choice when it comes to the amount of detail you put into leaf veins, I tend to draw the lines til my eye sees them dissolve into the blade of the leaf.  At that point I fade the line out into white with little dots, increasingly small and increasingly far apart.

Drawing pen lines on top of the pencil lines

Adding shadow

Once you’ve done the lines, you want to add shadow.  you also want to break up the stark solidity of the line.  You can do this by stippling.  Stippling is using loads of tiny dots to represent shadow and tone.  In general, the larger the dots and closer together they are, the darker the shadow is.  Less pressure means each dot will be smaller.

You need to look really closely at your leaf to see where the shadows lie.  In general, the tradition in botanical illustration is to have a light source coming over your left shoulder. This informs the position of the shadows.  Of course, you can change this light source, but do be certain you’re consistent so that the shadows make sense.

Another thing to remember is that if a shadow is cast below a leaf vein (as below), then it’s likely that every vein on that side of the leaf will cast a similar shadow – below the vein.  Look at leaves, often if the shadow is cast below the lateral veins on one side of the midrib, the pattern will be flipped on the other side.

Stippling the shadow below the leaf veins

Softening the edges

The eye likes things to have edges, and our stark pen lines have provided this.  however, the eye also relishes a gentle transition from a dark line to a white area of paper.  Stippling from the edges inwards provides this.  More dots right up to the pen line, less and smaller dots as you move in and away from that edge.

Darkening the edge of the leaf

Shadows

As well as smaller shadows cast by the leaf veins, or the edge of a stem, you have larger and darker areas of shadow.  In the Downy birch, the second leaf on the bottom casts a dark shadow on the first one.  Shadows are always cast by something, so you need to keep an eye on the logic of the tonality in any illustration

How do you show this?

Well, start by blocking in the area of shadow.  Use a thicker ink pen for this, with an 0.5 nib.  Colour in the darkest part of the shadow, making it solid. Make sure you look closely at the subject to figure out the shape of this shadows.  You can see this shape below.

Leaves completed, working on dark shadow

Stems

For some reason best known to myself, instead of working into the dark shadows, I decided to sort out the leaf stem at this point.  It’s easy.  Using the same approach as before, soften the top edge of the stem with a line of small dots.  To suggest shadow on the underside of the stem, do two or three lines of dots on the bottom line of the stem.  You’ll also want to darken the areas around the nodes.

Stippling the stem

Softening the shadow

Now we need to make that dark shadow less stark.  Again, use lots of dots to ease out the crisp shadow edge a little.  You want the eye to register the area as dark shadow, but not to feel a jarring at how suddenly it ends, and moves onto the white of the paper.  Soften it with stippling.  This can take some doing as you are almost building a solid black on the very edge of the dark area.  As you may well have noticed by now, stippling takes AGES!

Working to soften the edges of the dark shadow

Downy birch catkins

I struggled a little with the catkins.  I understood the structure, and had figured out details of individual scales and flowers.  But representing this on the illustration was hard.  it was another of those challenges relating to scale.  Having large things (like a leaf or a tall plant) with tiny elements (such as teeny flowers or scales) on the same image is challenging.  the worst for this is Cow parsley and relatives.  Enormous plants, with miniscule individual white flowers, and intricately divided leaves.

Working into the shadow of these catkins was tough too.  I needed the right hand side of each cylinder to be in shade, to be darker.  but I didn’t want to lose the detail under a blanket of stippling.  The catkins also cast drop shadows on the leaf behind.  This meant the very edge of the catkin, on the right, had to be left white (or pale) so it showed up.

Working into the catkins

Rubbing out

Once the stippling is all done, it’s time to rub out the pencil lines.  I use a soft rubber, a Factis triangular, for this.  it can lift a tiny bit of the darkness of the ink, so use a light touch.  It can also leave the texture of the page feeling a little sticky.  But it does the job.

Looking at a completed illustration with the pencil removed always feels great.  It’s the last step it what is often a painfully long-winded process.

Rubbing out the pencil lines

Adding things you may have forgotten!

Just because you’ve finished, doesn’t mean you can’t return to the illustration and add things.  In this case, it was only the next day that I realised I’d not added the species specific tiny hairs to the stem of the Downy birch.

Not a problem.  Using my thinnest pen (0.05mm) I just popped them in along the length of the plant.

Adding hairs to the stem

Completed Downy birch illustration

And that’s the Downy birch leaves and catkins completed.  I also did some details of individual catkin scales, flowers, and fruits.

Then I handed over the illustration to the design team at Jonathan Cape, so they could prepare the illustration for inclusion in The Tree Line: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth by Ben Rawlence.

Completed pen and ink illustration

I believe they’ll be adding borders round the different illustrations, and one of the mock-ups looks a little like the image below.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the book.  It sounds like a timely and fascinating topic.  Looking at the trees growing on the edge of the arctic circle and seeing how they have been affected by climate change.  For fifty years they tree line has been creeping closer to the north pole, and Ben looks at what this means both for this northern biome and for the planet, and ultimately for us as well.

Below is a real-time film of me completing this illustration, along with me explaining the process and nattering away.

The post Step by step Downy Birch leaves appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

A recent commission to illustrate a hay meadow landscape down on the coast of Devon was a wonderful job.  The client is North Devon Area of Natural Beauty (NDAONB) and the illustration will be used on an interpretation board on site.

Currently, the area is scrub land; it’s over-grazed and needs managing for wildflowers and wildlife.  Which is where my illustration comes in.  Based closely on the present view across Bentham bay, my task was to illustrate an idealised hay meadow full of wild flowers and animals.  In amongst there are a few unusual species (such as the Brown Carder Bee Bombus humilis) which NDAONB are rightly proud of and keen to encourage.

Although the area may never look as extreme as my illustration, with careful management NDAONB have good reason to believe a healthy and vibrant hay meadow community is only a few years away.

Pencil Rough

As always, the first step is to put together all the elements in a composition which flows.  This often involves using birds in the sky as framing devices, and making sure longer grasses remain on the edges, encouraging your eye to move across the landscape.

From the thumbnail, I work up a much more detailed pencil rough, starting with the background landscape, then plotting in the animals, and finally filling the spaces between with appropraite wild flower species.

I always send client annotated pencil roughs to ensure every species they wanted to include has been accounted for.

Annotated Pencil Rough of Bentham Coastal Hay Meadow Landscape

Painting the Landscape

Once I get the go-ahead, I begin by adding the sky.  This is a very wet wash that covers the entire sheet of paper except for the animals in the foreground.  It helps unite the painting.

Next, I paint the background landscape, keeping the colours pale and the contrast limited.  This ensures that when completed the animals grab your attention, and there’s a feeling of depth to the hay meadow landscape.  This part of the illustration doesn’t really get noticed when it’s complete, but it often takes longer than the details of the plants and animals.

I also pop in the tractor (compete with a grumpy farmer).  I love painting slightly unusual things, and the tractor and hay bales were a lot of fun.

The sky and background normally take about a day; working on the shrubs and trees will take at least another full working day.

Illustrating the Hay meadow flora

Now come the wild flowers.  I work from left to right so I avoid leaning on completed work.  I also lean on a big sheet of paper so that the unpainted area remains clean as I paint.

The flowers in this hay meadow include clover, common orchid, yellow rattle (an indicator of healthy meadow land), rest harrow, bedstraw, knapweed, milk thistle, various grass species, buttercup, tormentil, and ox-eye daisy.  I was lucky enough to visit the Bentham meadow site so could add species I found growing there to the existing plant list.

Work in Progress: Painting the wild flowers

Close up of the illustration showing the blues in the Clover leaves and the pink Restharrow flowers

I love this stage, how the white spaces where the animals will go start to pop out at you.  One of my friends described it as looking like a sticker-book, waiting for a child to pop the right colourful sticker onto the right line drawing.

Getting there: Working into the leaves

I tend to paint the leaves first, then treat myself to the brightly coloured flowers.  You can see this in the photo above, the yellow flowers are completed but the pinks, purples and reds await my ministrations.

Some plants are trickier than others; the Yellow rattle (unpainted, left hand side) has pale leaves and chalky yellow petals.  It also has very pale green calyx flushed crimson.  Yellow rattle often gets left until last.

This is a similar view, but the Self heal and Yellow rattle have been added.

Adding the flowers on a large landscape like this (60 cm across) takes a couple of days.

Adding the animals to the Hay Meadow landscape

Once the flowers and foliage are in I re-visit them with some dark purples and blues, picking out the shadows and trying to add depth to the undergrowth.  This stage takes a long time and involves a lot of getting very close, then standing well back from the illustration.

I love this stage of a landscape illustration,  It’s like being a child in a sweet shop.  Only the animals left to paint in, and they are FUN.

As with the plants, I tend to work from left to right.  I’ll also do any animals in the sky first.  Getting the edges of a bird or butterfly wrong can spell disaster as it’s much harder to hide mistakes in a clean blue sky than it is to fudge and fix amongst swathes of leaves and flowers.

Hay Meadow Landscape with background and wild flowers completed.

Birds and Butterflies in the sky

The kestrel will be a familiar motif to those of you who read my blogs regularly, as will the lark.  I have used the same reference and position for these species over and over again, mostly in these landscapes.  You can find this Kestrel (flipped) in my Malham cove landscape, and the lark appears in my BBC Wildlife magazine Hay meadow cross-section.   It also appears (flipped) in my illustration of a Hen harrier hunting red grouse.

There are several repeated animals that come up, I do a good line in repeating swallows and I’m pretty sure the Large Skipper has featured before (possibly in that same BBC Wildlife Hay meadow).  My philosophy is, “why change it if it works?”.  However, I digress.

Kestrel Falco tinnunculus

Adding Animals at Ground level

Moving from left to right, down at ground level we have the Rock Pipit and Large Skipper done and dusted.  The bank vole was made easier as I have a specimen in my freezer (for more on this habit of hanging onto road kill and prizes from cats, please look at my Youtube video: Birds, Bugs and Bodies in the Freezer).  This means colour matching the fur is much easier.

My dear friend costumier Wendy Harrup gave me an old Victorian butterfly cabinet, so getting the colours right on the lepidopteran specimens is so much better than it used to be.  Working from photos and illustrations is helpful if you can’t access a specimen (see my blog for more on this), but having the actual plant or animal there in front of you is infinitely preferable.  It’s so much easier!

Here’s the Peacock butterfly, Aglais io, much enlarged.

I illustrate butterflies by leaving their wing veins as white til near the end.  A top wash knocks the veins back and adds structure and depth to the wing form.

The main focus of the whole illustration is the big female Holly Blue.  She needs to be good, or the entire illustration will fail.  I take my time with the centre-stage species, and spend longer on them than on the other animals.  Building up the black wing edges with lots of tiny brush strokes is always rewarding and helps to make her feel clean and crisp.

Holly blue Celastrina argiolus butterfly

It took nearly two days working on the animals to get to this stage.

The homeward stretch

At this point I start counting down how many animals I have left to paint, and postulating as to when the illustration might be completed.  I thought it would take two more days from this point, but it went smoothly and was complete in one.

Animals on the left remain to be “coloured in”.  I start with the Brown Carder bee, then move onto the Great Bush Cricket and the male Holly Blue.

Brown carder bee Bombus humilis, Great Bush Cricket Tettigonia viridissima, and male Holly Blue Celastrina argiolus

One of the effects I love about these hay meadow landscapes is that animals who are  well camouflaged in life become equally well disguised in an illustration.  The cricket seems to disappear in the grass and leaves.

A couple more butterflies are added without mishap, and the Wood mouse is completed (and slightly wide eyed).

Wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus

The final animal to add is the Stonechat Saxicola rubicola.  I properly love these birds.  When I walk along the coast in Pembrokeshire, they’re always in evidence.  They flutter from gorse bush to gorse bush, chittering and flittering.  I find them most endearing, and very beautiful.  Painting them is lovely, and mixing that rich brick red is always a joy (especially after so much green and blue!).

Balancing Reds in the composition

In this illustration, the Stonechat is really important structurally.  The red on his chest needs to be there to draw the eye across the page, and balance out the red tractor and the Peacock butterfly.  All these things have to be considered at the thumb nail stage.  Unfortunately there’s a slight disconnect between the crimson of the tractor and Peacock butterfly, and our Stonechat.  Adding a tiny bit of crimson to his chest and eye helps, but it doesn’t quite swing it.

Were I to repeat this illustration, I’d make certain there was another crimson flower or animal firmly on the right hand side of the painting.  You can see where I’ve tried to balance the crimson by adding it to the inner petals on the small milk thistle below his tail, and to the stems of the self heal plant.  There’s a lot of this trickery that goes on in these landscapes; hopefully it’s subtle enough for the viewer not to notice.

Detail of the completed Stonechat, Saxicola rubicola

Finishing up

The final touches involve mixing up some more purple and blue, and tweaking the darkest areas of shadow.  I also make a far more dilute mauve and add the shadows to the landscape, below the trees.  You can decide what time of day the illustration is at this point – I tend to go for a late afternoon with the shadows just starting to lengthen.  3.30pm-ish.

Next, I cut the landscape free from the board it was stretched on, wrap it as best I can, and take it to my wonderful local printers to be scanned.  Then it’s just a matter of invoicing the client (who has paid and claims to be delighted – phew), and adding this landscape to the list of unframed original illustrations I have available for sale.  This one is £275 (unframed), about 60 cm x 40 cm, and is ready for immediate dispatch if you fancy it!

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