Royal Botanic Gardens Scarf

Royal Botanics Garden Scarf

It’s been thrilling for Annie to see Dame Joanna Lumley wearing the Royal Botanic Garden’s limited-edition silk scarf, based on her painting.

This scarf came about because of a meeting with Helena Lawrence, Head of Retail at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, who thought that my small painting Autumn Hedgerow would work well as a silk scarf.  Working on paper measuring 2 metres by 60 centimetres and using the same techniques and materials as Autumn Hedgerow – mono-print, watercolour ink, collage and acrylic – I painted At the River’s Rim.   

My inspiration came from the willow trees which surround the pond in the Botanic Gardens themselves. Helena Lawrence writes: ‘It was so exciting to visit Annie’s Studio every couple of months and to see how, detail by detail, the design seemed to emerge from the background, almost as if the mist had cleared from the Botanics Pond’

For some reason the willow leaves brought to mind the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem which begins “As kingfishers catch fire” and that is how the kingfishers became part of the finished work.

I am absolutely delighted to see Dame Joanna Lumley wearing one of my paintings!

Autumn Hedgerow is one of three of my paintings which are published by Mistletoe Cards

Note: RBGE is a charitable organisation so proceeds from all sales, will go to support the important work of the garden in plant science and biodiversity research. Annie will also be donating half her fee from the design of the scarf to the global animal welfare charity, Compassion in World Farming.