Wendy Cooper (2) (1953–)

What a beautiful book and what a superb nature-artist. I've long been aware of William Cooper..... (wonder why he used the "T" in his name....to give him a nice brand (WTC) or to distinguish himself from other William Coopers)....but mainly in the context of a painter of birds. But, apparently, he also did a lot of botanical painting....initially as an adjunct to his bird painting....to provide a natural setting for his birds etc. Unfortunately, William seems to have died relatively young and it was up to his wife to collect these works and produce the current volume of botanical art.
I must confess that I have been blown-away by his work. In nearly all cases the works probably don't qualify as pure botanical paintings because they are done with a hard edge in ink and coloured-in ...usually with water colour or with gouache. But his finished paintings...most often with birds.....don't have the hard edges. Actually, I love his work with pencil, ink and watercolour....complete with the hard-inked outlines. These are clearly designed to be reference drawings in most cases ...and not finished art but they are truly works of art in themselves and I love the fact that they show the artist in action.....often with scribbled notes about the colours ("They range from this (dark) to mid warm green"). And what an artist...he captures the subtle twists in leaves, the blemishes where an insect had taken a bite, and had a wonderful sense of balance and what looked good. And (according to the text) he could just decide which way the light was falling for his paintings and adjust accordingly.
One thing I did learn from him was that he was exceptionally hard-working and prolific. He was clearly a stickler for authenticity and matched up his birds with trees or situations that matched their real habitat....even where the birds might be in a foreign country. There are extracts from his diaries ...which are really interesting in themselves ...but he rarely seems to have taken much time off. He was always sketching, drawing, capturing the interesting things around him. And he and Wendy spent most of their lives in some great locations for painting wildlife and forest plants.
One of the things I liked was the juxtaposition of some of the working drawings with the finished painting of, maybe, a couple of birds and you can see how he's used the working drawing....sometimes directly copying it, sometimes reversing part of the plant or sometimes just using the drawing to add leaves or twigs that were not actually in the working details but he had sufficient information there to be able to produce them.
There is a fair sprinkling of his bird paintings throughout which I really appreciated. It's not just the working drawings of vegetation and fruits. Apparently, he and Wendy, his wife, would just collect stuff....normally take it back to the studio....but often work in-situ and they produced a whole book on rainforest fruits. The paintings were so true to the original that a botanist friend was able to classify them and provide the botanical names for (apparently) all his drawings. Hard to believe that he was pretty much self taught as a naturalist....though he and his wife were awarded honorary Doctorates from the ANU for their contributions. (And, justly deserved, from what I could see in this book).
There is quite a variety of media used: pen and ink, pencil, watercolour, gouache, acrylic, oils and various combinations. Mostly the drawings are of parts of a tree, or bush...frequently with the fruit or flowers but there are also ink drawings of forest settings or buttress roots. And in many cases he's made more detailed drawings of some feature or the plant or situation (lichens on a branch, or the flower details).
The book itself is beautifully put together...with superb colour reproduction and a nice balance of text and drawings/paintings.
As I said, I love it. An easy five stars from me.… (mehr)