In Ellen Hutchins Footsteps

Ireland's first Female Botanist

In Ellen Hutchins' Footsteps

BY SHEVAUN DOHERTY, BOTANICAL ARTIST

It’s hard not to feel intrigued when you hear the story of Ellen Hutchins, and all that she achieved in her short life. She was a remarkable and fascinating woman, and an impressive botanist. However, it was only when I began to paint one of Ellen’s actual specimens in the Herbarium at Trinity College Dublin, that I truly appreciated her skill as an artist.
The art of botanical painting hasn’t really changed in the 200 years since Ellen’s death. The role of a botanical artist is to create a visual description of a plant, ideally showing the size, colour, texture and growth habit. We still paint from life. Whilst photography can be a useful aid, the human eye can see far more nuances of light and colour than any camera lens. The subject is almost always isolated on the page, something that can’t easily be done when photographing a plant.

It was a thrill to open Ellen’s box of dried herbarium specimens in Trinity College and to see the bright colours, even after 200 years. I chose a beautiful red seaweed which she had labelled ‘Fucus ovalis, Whiddy, 1805’. From its date, it must have been one of the first that she sent up to James Townsend Mackay in Trinity College. I later learned that it is now called Gastroclonium ovatum. I decided to paint my seaweed on calfskin vellum, which is similar to the parchment used in old manuscripts.

Just as Ellen would have done, the process begins with careful measuring. I always do my initial drawings onto a separate piece of paper. This is because each time you rub out a pencil line, you damage the surface of the ‘good’ paper, scuffing the page, or leaving indentation marks, which in turn affects the way the watercolour paint behaves. If the paper is damaged, it’s difficult to get a smooth flat wash of colour.
Once everything is measured and drawn, the drawing is transfer onto ‘good’ paper, using tracing paper, or a lightbox. I couldn’t help but wonder if Ellen did initial drawings. There are no sketches or rough drafts of Ellen’s work around today, and yet, there is no evidence of pencil lines on her artwork. Did she get the drawing completely right first time and not have a need to draw it out roughly first? Where are her notes, her measurements?
If she did draw it out roughly, how did she transfer it? It is possible to trace drawing by placing both the good paper and the rough drawing against a window, so perhaps that is what she did.

After the drawing was done, it was time to consider the colours. Many of the paints that were used in Ellen’s time have changed. Modern paints are more lightfast and thankfully, not as toxic as the paints would have been in Ellen’s day. Some of the 18th and 19th century paints contained mercury, arsenic or lead.

It was whilst looking at Ellen’s seaweed under the microscope that I noticed a funny little marine creature, a copepod, long dead, caught in the dry fronds.
It must have been on the seaweed when Ellen collected it from the shore, and was preserved with the specimen. I decided to include this little creature (a mere 2mm long) in my painting and called him ‘Crusty’.

Painting the specimen was a very fiddly process, and took hours of concentration. From start to finish, it took about a week to paint. My eyes ached from using the magnifier. By the end of it all, I had a new-found respect for Ellen’s patience and her attention to detail. Her artwork is meticulous, and her painting technique shows incredible control. I also began to understand the attraction that these subjects held for her. Seen under the microscope, they are exquisitely beautiful.

Shevaun Doherty, Botanical Artist, 2017

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