Plant Portraits by Post || Julia Trickey

This rather beautiful little book tells the story of the creation of a series of botanical illustrations that were used on Royal Mail’s self-service Post and Go stamps.

Although it stands alone as a guide to the development of clear botanical images, and can be read as a useful guide to that in itself, the fact that the results were to be reproduced at relatively low resolution and small size adds an extra dimension. What you see here as full-page images would be seen by the public at postage-stamp size. Detail therefore needs to be clear and kept to a minimum without compromising the quality of the picture or obscuring the nature of the subject.

The results are beautiful and subtle and the accompanying narrative, which describes both the plants and the painting process, is both instructive and absorbing. On the basis of this, I hope someone will sign Julia up for a larger book.

Click the picture to view on Amazon