My Botanical Sketchbooks
As part of my design work in engraving as well as in printmaking, I make drawings and paintings of
botanical and other subjects in my sketchbooks. These are typically small books of hand-made paper,
bound in a traditional manner. In them, I make watercolour paintings or pen and ink drawings, and I
subsequently refer to these books when designing on glass or when creating my etching plates.
I aim to select plants which are in flower, choosing the exact species or variety as requested by
the client. I try to work on translating the colours in the paintings into the
different textures inherent in glass engraving.
Because of the way in which the images of the sketchbooks are handled, there may be some
delay when a sketchbook is referenced while the individual page images are retrieved. Please be patient
if you are working on a slow line. You can download reduced-resolution images if you wish to avoid delay
At the moment, three sketchbooks are available in this form- two are varied in subject,
the third consists entirely of snowdrops painted in white upon a blue ground.
I find this helps me in the translation of tonal values from the sketch to the glass
I will be adding other sketchbooks later
Page last updated 29 June 2011