Description

This was the first flower that captured my gaze on a visit to the garden of my good friend Gareth. He grows the majority of his plants from seed. He says of this Iris, “It’s called Jane Phillips. She was the daughter of the man who bred it, Dr. Robert J. Graves and he registered this variety in 1946 in the USA. It is a type of Iris x germanica, the origins of which are somewhat unclear. Often called bearded iris because of the coloured fuzzy hairs on the sepals of the lower falls, the bit the bees clamber up.”

I mixed some artist’s quality cobalt blue with some zinc white and added just a tiny smattering of rose to take it towards indigo. It was such a pleasure to paint – it was like painting the ruffles on a blue dress!

I wondered if I dared to paint it, would I do it any justice? I practiced my realism painting style on another flower before attempting this Jane Phillips iris art, botanical painting!