© 2025 Willa Downing

Willa Downing, Artist _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden

An artist-in-residence project at Darts Hill Garden (Surrey BC), these paintings are based on black-and-white images in Gertrude Jekyll’s “Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden” (1908) from Francisca Darts’ library. A pioneer of gardening (e.g. herbaceous borders), Gertrude Jekyll was a very influential British horticulturalist and garden designer. Amusingly a book about colour could only be printed in black and white, prompting one’s imagination to work hard visualizing the gardening advice.

Oil on canvas