Elisabeth works in watercolour on paper and vellum, in a style that is traditional, intricate, and botanically accurate. She works from life in natural light, and after making detailed preparatory drawings, paints on Arches or Fabriano paper. Each painting can take many weeks to complete, as she likes to show the various stages of growth of the plant, which can mean returning to the study at different times of the year. Her particular interest is in painting crops, especially fruit, having painted the plates for "The New Book of Apples", and “The Book of Pears” featuring fruits from the National Collection at Brogdale. She has just completed paintings for the third book on Cherries and is at present working on the final volume depicting mixed fruit and nut varieties. Her flower portraits tend to focus on a single genus at a time, notably Violas and Fuchsias, and sixty plates painted for "Auriculas Through the Ages".
Elisabeth has been awarded seven Gold Medals by the Royal Horticultural Society, and her work has been published in fifteen books, featured on porcelain, in calendars and on seed packets. Her paintings, one of which was presented to the Princess of Wales, are in many important private collections and institutions, and her "Ribston Pippin Apple" was selected for inclusion in the Highgrove Florilegium.
In 2014 Elisabeth appeared on BBC Countryfile in a feature about her work on "The Book of Pears".
In 2019 she had a major Solo Exhibition of her fruit paintings at Cannon Hall Museum.
AWARDS
Seven Gold Medals awarded by the Royal Horticultural Society
Certificate of Botanical Merit, Society of Botanical Artists, 1999, 2001, 2002
Winner of the St. Cuthbert's Mill Award, 2004
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Hortus Gallery, Chelsea Green, London 2001 and 2003
Pashley Manor Gardens 1997
Cannon Hall, 2019
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Society of Botanical Artists, Westminster, London 1996 – 2004
Royal Horticultural Society, London, 1986 – 1998
Sevenoaks Wildfowl Reserve
Hortus, London 2003
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, 2000
Denver Art Museum, Colorado 2002, 2003
National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian, Washington, 2003
Marciana Library, Venice, 2001
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2005
New Orleans Museum of Art, S Carolina, 1997
SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 1998
Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan 1998
Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, Cape Town, 1998
Royal College of Physicians 2018
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, 2019
Shirley Sherwood Gallery, Kew, 2009, 2015,2020
COLLECTIONS
Elisabeth's paintings are held in many private collections worldwide, and also:
The RHS Lindley Library
The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation USA
The Shirley Sherwood Collection
The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
COMMISSIONS
Many commissions in the UK and abroad including:
Williams and Phoa
Hatton Associates
The Wellcome Institute
Suttons Seeds Ltd
Queen's China
Olympia and York, for presentation to the Princess of Wales
Lateral Branding, Barcelona for product packaging for Pastoret
Haye Farm Cider
DK Glove sheets packaging
Lucid Design and Prohibition Agency for;
Packaging for Wild Roots Spirits, Oregon
Packaging for Northwest Confections, Portland, Oregon
PUBLISHED WORKS
Numerous publications including:
A Field Guide to Crops; G. de Rougemont. Collins 1989
The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening; Macmillan 1992
The Book of Apples; Dr. Joan Morgan. Ebury 1993
Orchids; Peter Arnold; Cassell 1993
The Herb Bible; Peter McHoy. Quarto 1994
Violas and Violettas; Rodney Fuller. Harper Collins 1994
Fuchsias; John Ridding. Harper Collins 1994
Your Backyard Herb Garden; Miranda Smith. Rodale 1996
A Pinch of Herbs; Katy Holder. Chartwell Books 1997
The New Oxford Book of Food Plants; John Vaughan. OUP 1997
Bulbs in Bloom; Peter Arnold. Laurel Glen Press 1999
The New Oxford Book of Food Plants. Catherine Geissler 2009
Auriculas Through the Ages. Patricia Cleveland-Peck. Crowood Press 2011
The Book of Pears; Dr. Joan Morgan. Ebury/RHS 2015
Elisabeth's paintings have been included in:
A New Flowering; Dr. Shirley Sherwood
The Botanical Palette; Margaret Stevens
The Art of Botanical Painting; Margaret Stevens
History and Dictionary of British Flower Painters; Josephine Walpole
A Passion for Plants; Dr. Shirley Sherwood
Art y Botanica
The Illustrated College Herbal
Botanic Endeavour
Florilegium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
Botanical Illustration Gold Medal Winners
The Shirley Sherwood Collection; Modern Masterpieces of Botanical Art
Her work has also featured in many magazine and newspaper articles