My name is Victoria Beyer, I am a Chilean artist, I specialise in botanical portraits in watercolour.
I grew up very close to nature, I am amazed by the duality of strength and fragility, and by its beauty.
Nature, the countryside, the forest are part of my being because they are part of my origin.
My creative process is almost always the same. I am curious about the life of a plant, about some characteristic, what connects me emotionally with it. I feel the need to portray it.
My first choice is to have the plant on my desk or find it in a nearby park. If not, I use photographs taken by myself. The composition is always related to my feeling, I want it to look great, respectable, a bit like the oil portraits from the past.
First I make sketches, lots of them, I think for days, I imagine, then I make compositions.
I think about it day and night and it won’t go away until I do something about it.
I paint in watercolour and pencil. In watercolour I work in many layers, from wet on wet to dry brush with which, through very small markings, I create dimension. I don’t always respect the order, I don’t follow the rules of watercolour much, I just apply how I see it could work for that subject, at that stage.
I always use pigments that are highly resistant to light, and my palette is somewhat restricted, which helps me to know what I have, instead of getting lost in a multitude of colours, I prefer to create them myself.
First I do colour tests on my sketches, then when I know everything in and out, I start painting.
The process to work with pencils is similar, many layers, color selection, color testing and final work.
Follow my journey by joining my Newsletter “The botanical art journal”