Helen Placanica

Botanical artist living in Brisbane, Queensland, using watercolour and graphite to depict the bold and often bizarre but always beautiful Australian native plants. 

 

After15 years of freelance writing and photography for a number of Australian gardening magazines, in early 2019 I decided to finally try my hand at botanical art, having been inspired a few years earlier by an exhibition of members from the Queensland Society of Botanical Artists.  

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I guess it was an inevitable progression for me, having been interested from an early age in gardening and plants, and especially Australian native flowers, preserving specimens collected in a hand-made flower-press and with a few rudimentary attempts at drawing them.  "The Orchids of Tasmania" (MJ Firth, 1965), (where I grew up) and Thistle J Harris's "Wildflowers of Australia" (6th edition 1966) were odd birthday presents perhaps for an eight year old, but I absolutely cherished them, and I still do. 

 

Later, whilst researching articles for gardening magazines I discovered the botanical art of greats such as Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Ferdinand Bauer and Margaret Flockton, and the extraordinarily talented Rory McEwan.  Now the Internet and Instagram have opened up on my digital devices a whole new world of botanical art, and of artists who create works of exquisite beauty and willingly share their knowledge and expertise to those, like myself, who are embarking on their botanical art journey.

 

This is a catalogue of some of my work.

 

I am adding new works as I complete them, and they appear at the beginning of each gallery - and not all of them are Australian natives plants.  Check back from time to time and have a peek at what I've been doing.

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