Today I put my watercolour on the wall for the first time, along with its botanical label.
As you can see, I have placed it on the wall next to my pen and ink drawing of Cleyera orbicularis, in order to see how the two finished works look next to each other. This was an invaluable exercise, as not only does it show me how they will look in an exhibition environment, but it also gives me the opportunity to take a step back from my illustrations, and see them in a more objective and ‘overall’ view – rather than purely focusing on creating the level of detail required from a botanical illustration. It has helped me to realise the importance of composition in the illustrations, and how crucial certain pieces of information are to the viewer – for instance, I didn’t paint the cactus in the drawing, which has completely altered people’s perceptions of what the plant is, and how they read and understand it.
I am not too worried about this in this image, as it was merely a practice piece for me to understand how to draw with watercolour and to learn the process, but it is useful and fascinating to discover people’s opinions of the work (everyone has been struck by the detail), and how it is read by the audience.
I am happy with the overall presentation (I still need to frame my illustrations) – especially with the relationship between the botanical label and the illustration, and how they look next to each other. There are definitely things I need to play around with – including the orientation of the pieces and whether they are aligned by the top (as they are here), or centrally, or even at the base of the image. But this is something that I can experiment with at a later date – when I have more work to play with and to display.
