Researching flora and fauna and artists that paint these in murals

Hellebores (Helleborus spp.)
These are one of our client’s favourite flowers and we have also chosen to include them in our designs and work in class over the last few weeks.

Hellebores are also known as lenten roses as they are one of the first perennials to flower, coming into bloom around February and throughout the period of lent. Interestingly, the genus name, Hellebore, is derived from the Greek words elein and bora, meaning injure and food, respectively because the leaves are toxic when eaten (Hyams Garden Centre, 2022).

In modern meanings, hellebores are said to symbolise peace, tranquility and serenity, and different colours of hellebore can represent different things (Petal Republic)

Hellebore flowers from Peter Leigh’s gardening blog

What the colours symbolise (Petal Republic)

White – purity, sympathy
Pink – femininity, gentleness
Red – passion, romantic love
Purple – success, royalty
Almost black – mystery, goodbye

I chose to include really dark purple hellebore on my final design as it was in the colour scheme the client liked but also it could symbolise saying goodbye to the client’s colleague and success for the department going forward.

Agapanthus (Agapanthus africanus)

Sometimes called African lilies, these plants are not actually in the lily family, and are more closely related to asparagus. The individual flowers (florets) are arranged in a loose roughly globular flowerhead called an inflorescence. I studied infloresecences in alliums for several years and so I am often drawn to plants with similar morphology.

Some sources suggest that Agapanthus is the flower of love including chaste love and also beauty in retirement (Auntyflo.com) which both seem fitting in this tribute to a missed colleague.

Georgie Stewart – illustrator

Georgie is an illustrator who loves using texture and colour in her work. Georgie likes her work to be joyous, vibrant and uplifting. She does not often paint murals, and this one below caught my eye because she includes plants and wildlife (from the area where the mural is situated) and the colour palette is so vibrant even though she has used a reduced palette of colours. Picking and organising around a reduced palette was something that I found quite time-consuming when preparing my second design with the palette chosen by the client.
Georgie likes her work to be joyous, vibrant and uplifting (https://www.georgiestewart.com).

I also wanted to chose wildlife that is local to the area that our mural will be situated in, wildlife that is common in UK towns and cities in parks and gardens, so that it is in context with the environment. So, I included a snail, a leaf beetle and a Gatekeeper butterfly as well as a pair of aphids. I have written more about including these species in one of my previous posts here.

Georgie Stewart and her mural including UK animals, fungi and plants.

Kohin (Dan Toro) – street artist

I love the flower mural work of this artist, the flowers are painted more realistically than the previous artist and with depth of field.

Dan lives in Wyoming, USA and enjoys the creative voice art can bring out in all mediums. He enjoys the opportunity to collaborate with other artists who want to transform the local Laramie community by creating art which brightens small areas of the city one wall at a time (Laramie mural project). This has parallels with our mural project where we are collaborating to brighten a dull outdoor area of the staff facilities at a local hospital.