www.barbaramutch.com
There you will find a whole section devoted to TFP, describing the setting, the inspiration for the story, the fictional hamlet where the action plays out, and much more. Photos and quotes set the scene. One page is devoted to art, featuring the beautiful work of the late Betty Bowker.
Indeed, one of the most most interesting aspects of my research was in the area of botanical illustration - the speciality of the heroine, Frances. Music has always been my particular focus and I know very little about art, especially the making of it! That, clearly, had to change.
But how to get to grips with it?
I spent time looking at the Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library Digital Collections, and visited exhibitions in Cape Town for examples of paintings of the local flora. But I realised that I also needed to get my hands dirty if I was to understand Frances's passion. Then fate stepped in and I was lucky enough to receive a watercolour lesson from a well-known artist. To my surprise, I discovered that I could actually make something vaguely respectable, even if recognisable only to myself. And I learned that creating a painting is not dissimilar to transforming words into a story. It turns out that imagination is as much a part of painting as it is of developing a plot in a novel.
And there was more.
In the process, I learnt about the different types of mediums: paints, pastels, pencils, even charcoal.
Charcoal... the product of fire...
No comments:
Post a Comment