Freshwater 2

Here's the next freshwater plate.  This painting has been enjoyable to do, with some interesting backgrounds. You'll note two very similar plants in this one, tufted and water forget-me-not.  We'd decided early on that we would not meticulously paint each flower as is perhaps more common in botanical books, but instead show the plants slightly more 'loosely' in a recognisable Orkney location where you can find them (for those that are familiar with Tim's bird book, you'll see it follows the same format).  Anyway, this usually works well, but with very similar species like the forget-me-nots, it's important to show the smaller differences that separate them and sometimes these risk being lost in less detailed pictures.  In the case of the forget-me-nots, the sepals have slightly different shapes, with those of tufted forget-me-not forming more narrow and long triangles than water forget-me-not.  I hope this shows up enough in the original painting, although I think here the resolution is too low to see clearly.

The other flowers in the painting are from top left:  marsh willowherb, marsh pennywort, bogbean. bottom row from left: bog pimpernel, tufted forget-me-not, water forget-me-not.