Botanical Illustrations

Anyone who has listened to the music of Changes or has read any of my poetry will be aware of my enduring empathy for nature and the natural world around. I do not consider myself an ecologist. I have, however, always been a lover of nature. I have always thought of the term ecology as something abstracted and removed from nature in its real sense. Ecology seems an urban construct as a philosophy.

My interest in plant forms and flowers is an outgrowth of this love of nature, while at the same time being inspired by the many great botanical illustrations and engravings I have studied such as those from the Garden of Eichstat in Germany. Gardens have always been a metaphor for Paradise regained. In fact the very word garden is derived from the Persian word for Paradise. Both the Persians and the Arabs have always had a great love for flowery places with running waters and wells. The arid deserts of Arabia are of course the environmental opposite or antithesis of the fecundity of a garden.

Mostly I have drawn and painted plants and flowers which have had a special place in my life symbolically or in an immediate sense. An interest in geometry has also been something that I enjoy exploring within the natural world. 

I once worked on creating a stone-walled garden: my Garden of the Muses. Before it was half finished I was already planting various flowers and herbs which interested me at the time. I never completed the walled garden I had begun due to human factors beyond my control. However, I did complete my investigations of the plants there and did do drawings of them and others, some of which will appear within this gallery.

 
R. N. Taylor
2-4-11

Peyote, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11

Belledonna, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11

Henbane, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11

Mandrake, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11

Wormwood, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11

Leeks, prisma pencil, 8.5 x 11