Cactus Mural Anniversary!

Three years ago I had the opportunity to work on a wonderfully interesting project in one of my favourite places - the University of Durham Botanic Garden! The project was to paint a mural to go in the Cactus House.



Situated next to the Tropical House in the complex, the Cactus House backs onto another glasshouse. The Garden staff wanted a mural which could be installed to screen the room behind, and also to serve as an educational tool for visitors.


I was given a list of species to feature on the mural, which were to complement the collection of living cacti and succulents in the glasshouse. I produced a sketch/plan showing where the cacti were to be situated on the mural, with the landscape behind drawing the eye compositionally into the scene.



Below you can see the lovely smooth clean boards - primed with several coats of white gesso. I do love to start a new painting, and this one was in a particularly interesting environment!


The staff had made a kind of 'easel' for the boards to rest on in one of the glasshouses behind the cactus house.


To my right was an amazing feature - a raised pond housing the Victoria amazonica!


I worked during the afternoons, so that visitors to the garden could come and see what I was doing and talk with me. Later, when the gardens were closed, I was given the keys to the glasshouses so I could work uninterruptedly during the night. It was wonderful to watch the sky grow dark and the stars appear through the ceiling of the glasshouse!



I built the mural up in stages, from the basic drawing in pale colours, to laying in the blue sky, and then gradually working up the foreground.

More form and detail was gradually added.



To my right, the shapes of the lilypads in the raised pond were a constant source of fascination!

During the night, new lilies opened from buds. I would be painting away, then turn round, and a beautiful lily had opened!




Behind the pond were all kinds of cacti in pots - can you see the one with the little face that someone had made in it?

I had a comfortable bench to sit on to paint the details lower in the mural.


And little creatures to keep me company!






The mural was nearly complete ...


Details on the left ...


Details on the right ...


The Head Gardener asked me to paint a secret giraffe somewhere on the mural for visiting school children to find ... can you see the neck?



Why? ... Places can become secret portals to other worlds when mysterious intergalactic light shines on them!



After many days the mural was complete!


It was installed into position in the Cactus House. I love to go and see it and relive the wonderful time I had painting in such a special place. If you click on the picture below, you can view the website of the Botanic Garden.
Ingrid Sylvestre Mural Painter Mural Artist Durham North East England UK Newcastle Sunderland Teesside Darlington Northumberland Murals

A Blank Canvas - (or in this case, paper)!

Unlike many of my fellow-artist-friends, I LOVE a blank canvas or sheet of paper!

It's that excitement and anticipation of making the first mark, which may be premeditated after many sketches, or just joyous spontaneity.

This piece of work will be based on the landscape around Grey Towers which featured in my blogpost of November 12th. I'll be posting as it develops ...

North East artist Ingrid Sylvestre, Durham North East England UK. English Landscape Painter, English Landscape Painting, English Romantic Landscape Paintings, Fine Art commissions paintings for sale.

Pleasant People and Water Lily Leaves

Sunday afternoon has a nice feel to it and today was no exception. There were a lot of visitors to my 'studio' glasshouse, and I had a very pleasant time indeed talking with them. Many had read about the mural on this blog, and were interested to see it in real life.

My painting task was to add some darker shadows to the boulders. I used Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue and a little Yellow Ochre and Titanium White.


I applied this colour sparsely to the crevices and lower edges of the boulders.

At present it looks rather stark, until I scumble and dry-brush in some medium tone to link the dark and light areas together. When I first used acrylics many years ago, I used to gasp in horror at this contrast - now I see in my mind what the next stage will be, so all is calm!

The above photograph was taken on Friday. Not being familiar with these lilies, I had wondered about the strange round orangey form that had appeared overnight. The close-up below shows its rolled edge and spiky appearance.

Today I was amazed to see a large new leaf!

It had a crumpled texture like seersucker fabric, and the spikes were just visible on the upturned edge.

I found it spell-binding. Looking at it closely was quite surreal, and I could imagine all kinds of artistic applications in multi media works! It is so awe-inspiring that this incredibly complex structure has grown over two-and-a-bit days ...

From Solstice to Succulents!

A leap of several weeks and a drastic climate change from wintry snow to the temperature of the desert!

I have the exciting task of designing and creating a mural for the Cactus House at the University of Durham Botanic Garden.

Adjacent to beautiful wooded areas just south of Durham City, the Botanic Garden is a glorious place to be at all times of year. There is atmosphere, aesthetic beauty, botanical interest and a very nice cafe serving a plethora of culinary delights!

The Cactus House is situated in one of several glasshouses and is home to a fascinating collection of cacti and other succulents.

The mural is to be situated against the glass 'wall' which you can see straight ahead on the above photograph. This should make the cacti stand out instead of being a little 'lost' against the mixture of metal struts and items visible through the glass.

The actual painting work will be done in the adjacent glasshouse room - you can just see the tops of the white panels in the distance behind the creepers.

Here we have a mockup of the blank panels.

Above is a tonal 'sketch' of the proposed design. It is intended to complement the real cacti situated in the foreground and to draw the eye gently back into the distance.

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The scene will feature a cloudless sky and sparse plant life as a contrast to other habitats, such as rainforest. This will provide a useful reference and demonstration to school and other groups visiting the Botanic Garden.

Four plywood panels have been smoothly primed with acrylic gesso and are now ready for me to apply the first stages of the composition.

Here the preliminary sketch I created on paper has been superimposed over the photo to show where the various cacti will be painted. Some of the species have since been changed to give more variety of shape and form.

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Watch this space! 

Ingrid Sylvestre 

Durham artist Ingrid Sylvestre, mural artist, North East painter & artist, Durham City, North East England UK.