STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANDREA WILSON
15th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists at
The Horticultural Society of New York
Flowering Quince
Chaenomeles speciosa
What is your personal view of the artwork, for instance in terms of media, colors, composition?
The piece I exhibited in the 15th ASBA/Hort was my Flowering Quince copperplate etching. I love this piece primarily because of the flow of the composition, which is influenced by my love of Asian artwork. I wanted to produce an etching with strong lines and a graceful flow, using a bright color on the blossoms.
My process for creating this etching and most others begins with a graphite sketch on tracing paper. Once I have my sketch ready, I prep my copperplate. This involves beveling the edges to a 45°
Here’s where the real fun (or frustration) begins. Once the drawing is needled I’m ready to put the plate into the etching solution, which in my case is ferric chloride with a little citric acid/water mixture. This is a corrosive solution that etches into the exposed areas of copper creating crevices. The ground remaining on the plate protects areas that I do not want etched. The potential frustration comes from knowing how long to leave the plate in to achieve exactly the depth of etched line and look that you want.I won’t go into the many tests and trials that you go through to assure yourself you know how long that time is. Once you have achieved the depth of line etch you want for your drawing on the plate, you clean off your ground and run a test print to verify the results.
After I was satisfied with the line etch, I continued with another technique called aquatint, which is a method used to create tone in specific areas of a plate.In my case I wanted to tone the leaves and branch to give a contrasting texture from the blossoms. My aquatint process begins with “stopping out” all areas I want to remain clean and without the tone. This is a slow process of painting acrylic solution around all blossoms and blank areas plate’s surface—only leaving the leaves and stem exposed.Once that is done, I use enamel spray paint to very lightly spray a texture of paint on the exposed leaves and stem. The goal is to leave areas of totally exposed copper between the tiny dots of enamel paint. Then back to the etching solution for a shorter period of time relative to the line etch. After I’m happy with the tone of the leaves, I paint the stop out solution over the leaves.Now only the stem is exposed.It has some tone from the first dip in the solution, but since I want it darker than the leaves I return it to the solution for a longer etch. This is where it gets very difficult, at least for me. If I’m confident it is toned to the degree I want, it’s time to remove the acrylic stop out and run my test print.
The prints are run on my large 24 x 48 inch Ettan etching press—a large creature that takes up a considerable amount of space in my print area. I usually use Arches Cover White, which is actually a soft buff color printpaper. I soak the paper for at least 20 minutes and blot it to damp before running the print. The image you etch into the plate is a reverse so that when you lay it on the press and place your paper on top it prints the image as you originally sketched it on the tracing paper.
On a good day when the etching gods smile upon you, it may work fine—you come out with the line etching and aquatint just as you had hoped. Of course, sometimes you get to try again and again, till it does come out the way you want. That’s a simplified version of etching, without the details of the blood, sweat and tears.
In my case an additional step is hand-coloring each etching with watercolor. With my Flowering Quince I wanted a bold red to contrast with the intense dark of the stem and softer texture of the leaves. I also added a little opaque yellow on the anthers.In my mind this completed the Asian look I was striving for this etching.
Why did you choose this subject to portray?
In the spring of 2011 my friend brought me some branches from her quince. I had them in a vase at the gallery for several days and was able to fall in love with their beauty and elegant forms. I was hooked.
Did you face any unique challenges as you worked on this piece?
Each etching is a challenge for me. I knew I wanted to achieve a balance between dark areas, softer textured areas and color areas.On the blossoms themselves, I wanted to achieve a variety of tones within the painted areas.
What would you hope people would notice or appreciate when viewing this work?
I hope this etching makes them smile. This is something I learned from the study of Chinese and Japanese brush painting—they emphasize the flow of energy within a composition. I also love the importance they give to the beauty of negative spaces. I always think of blossoms having little conversations with each other when I’m painting or etching—it makes me very happy. Reminds me of the flowers in the Alice in Wonderland movie.
How does this work relate to your body of work?
The Flowering Quince is indicative of my botanical work whether we talk about my etchings and monotypes or my watercolors on paper or vellum. The Asian influence is present in most of my work.That’s one reason I love the traditional “floated” botanicals with the pure clean background spaces. Flowers and fall leaves are my primary subjects in recent years. I have not attempted scientific illustration, but whether plants or butterflies I strive for complete accuracy while enjoying my creative freedom in design.
In the past I have done many individual butterfly specimen paintings and geometric butterfly images.Once there was a psychologist looking at my work.He commented that the butterfly images reminded him of the Rorschach inkblots. I ask if he could tell my personality from my paintings, and he said “obsessive compulsive…”He didn’t follow through with the “disorder” part.
The art nouveau style has always fascinated me. Inspired by Gustav Klimt, I’ve created several very detailed images on paper. These pieces are usually of stylized butterflies, incorporating ink work, and a mosaic of tiny gilded areas of 14Kt gold and silver leaf.
Another craft that I enjoy is bookbinding. I’ve done several sketchbooks and books just to write in. Most are with a Coptic stitch binding. I love the marbled papers and colored linen threads that can be utilized. On my way home from a recent trip to Woodstock, after attending the NY Exhibition, we visited the Pergamena tannery. Seeing some beautiful, chestnut brown leathers they were processing, I had to come up with a purpose--my next book project will be a large, leather-bound book for a friend. As any true attention-deficit artist will admit--it never stop--I always want to learn.
Anything else!
I do not have an academic degree. I spent 30 years as a bookkeeper and secretary, while raising our son. All that time I painted for fun. But when he was older, I got more serious about my work. Taking several workshops on painting and etching and reading many, many books.I realized how much influence my grandparents had on my choice of subjects. I grew up spending many hours with them either planting and playing in the flowers or helping them prune trees and pick the fruit. Those are great memories that I wanted to capture in my artwork.
Several years ago I was very fortunate to meet Dr. Alan Heilman, who is a retired botany professor from the University of Tennessee. He appreciated my work and encouraged me to explore Dr. Shirley Sherwood’s books on botanical art. (I believe I own them all now.) Over the past seven or eight years, he was kind enough to give me books, make suggestions and continually encourage me.Since I live in a rural area, I do not have many opportunities for classes specific to botanical artwork. Because of this fact, Dr. Sherwood’s books with the beautiful, close-up images were a treasure for me to learn from.
I believe it was in the reference section of one of Dr. Sherwood’s books where I found the contact information about the American Society of Botanical Artists. Once I joined the ASBA, my work and my career have “blossomed”. I look forward to every issue of the ASBA Journal—it consistently offers a wealth of information. A few years ago there was an article by Kate Nessler about her work on vellum. The article intrigued me, and after taking a class from Carol Woodin, I am beginning to focus more and more on this very organic calfskin surface. Being juried into the ASBA/Hort Exhibition is truly a dream come true for me. Not only having the opportunity to exhibit my work at an international level but also having the opportunity to meet artists whose work I have studied for years is thrilling. Hopefully in the coming years I will be able to enjoy taking additional classes, attending the ASBA conferences and meeting new friends in the botanical art field. If you want to meet some friends who have similar interests to your own and improve your botanical art knowledge, I can only tell you it has been a joy for me to be a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists and it will be for you too!
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