Artist at RHS 'Best in Show'

It was a huge pleasure to represent the Horatio’s Garden arts programme and artists in residence at the charity’s Main Avenue show garden at RHS Chelsea 2023.

As one of the spinal injury charity’s designers and art workshop hosts, I was invited to take part in garden events by painting ‘plain air’ in the show garden itself. While visitors and charity sponsors took in the beauty of the planting and cutting edge garden designs in the garden, it gave me an opportunity to record a little of the plants in the evening light and to chat about the charity which builds and looks after beautiful garden spaces for spinal units across the British Isles.

Added to the excitement of the event was the presentation of Best in Show to Horatio’s Garden and the garden designers, Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bug of Harris Bug Studio.

Horatio’s Garden nurtures wellbeing after spinal injury in vibrant sanctuaries in NHS spinal centres. This show garden was the first garden on Chelsea’s famous main avenue that has mobility needs at its heart and it is being relocated to the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre in Sheffield in 2024. It will be the eighth of the charity’s gardens at NHS spinal centres.

As you can understand, I felt as slight sense of trepidation in representing the charity in their show garden, with such a large audience. To prepare and ensure I didn’t make a mess of my part I did lots of plein air painting, or outdoor painting, and packed and unpacked my travelling wooden easel and palette many times.

However, once set up in the garden the light was so beautiful and visiting garden enthusiasts so friendly that the event was a joy. I’d do it again at the drop of a hat!

English country garden mural

After many weeks of concentrated painting, this gorgeous English country garden mural is finally finished and looking truly wonderful.

Working with the garden designer, we layered paintings of the plants and flowers that will be surrounding this beautiful country house and will be viewed through the windows of the entrance hall.

Here’s a short walk through the mural, and to see some close up images of the mural details follow this link to my instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/katymcbrown/

Katy

Hampshire Open Studios, a chance to come and chat

As part of Hampshire Open Studios 2020, I’ll be opening the doors of my studio and painting, thoughout the August Bank Holiday weekend:

Friday 29th to Monday 31st August,

10.00am to 4.00pm.

You’ll find all sorts of lovely things, like my luxurious fabrics to order by the meter, lampshades, garden and cloud paintings to buy and murals to see.

The studio, which used to be the Old Post Office, can be found at SO51 0JN:

Lockerley Green,

Lockerley

Hampshire

Just look out for the Hampshire Open Studios bunting.

As a taster, here’s a painting created over lock down. It features my favourite bench at Mottisfont Abbey walled garden. I was acutely aware that the piles of roses were flowering behind its high walls through May and was so delighted to catch the end of the display when we were released.

Here’s the resulting oil painting, of a bench, with roses and a mask, as a reminder.

Yours, Katy