STORY BEHIND THE ART OF DENISE WALSER-KOLAR

18th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at The Horticultural Society of New York

Bamberwood Apple

Malus cv.

My parent's neighborhood (where I grew up) has a few ancient apple trees left from an old orchard. Every time I would walk past those trees, I thought how fun it would be to paint the apples. Most of the apples within reach would be eaten by deer before I got to them and the ones on the top would fall down (and also be eaten be deer). One year, I managed to get some of them before they all disappeared.

As almost always with botanical art, the challenge was trying to finish before the apple completely rotted away. I also wanted to portray it in a way that I hadn't seen done before. I did many thumbnail sketches before I decided on this underneath view of the apple. I used watercolor on vellum. I love how vellum allows me to capture the glowing, variegated colors of the apple skin. I also like the contrast between the color and texture of the apple skin and the very different texture of the dried leaves. 

Almost everything I am painting now has meaning to me - either I grew it myself, someone I know grew it or it came from a special place. I don't know the name of these apples, so I am calling the painting "Bamberwood Apple", as that is the name of the neighborhood.

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Read more about this artist's work: 17th Annual International