Hamilton Botanical Art
Botanical Art Rooted in the Scottish Landscape
I’m Claire Hamilton, a botanical artist based in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. My work is shaped by the wild plants and landscapes I encounter while walking through the hills, heathland and woodland around me.
I’m particularly drawn to the plants that are easy to pass by: harebells moving on impossibly fine stems, cottongrass catching the light across a boggy hillside, the tiny flowers of cowberry tucked beneath glossy leaves. Looking closely at how a plant grows, and at the details that distinguish one species from another, is an important part of my work.
From the Hills
to the Studio
Much of my work begins outdoors. I photograph, sketch, make notes and study plants where they grow, often returning to the same places through the seasons. Bennachie and the wider Scottish landscape provide an almost endless source of subjects. Back in the studio, those observations become detailed botanical paintings and studies in watercolour, coloured pencil, graphite and pen and ink.
Botanical accuracy matters to me, but I also want a painting to retain something of the plant as I encountered it. The delicacy of a harebell, the unruly structure of a thistle or the movement of cottongrass across an exposed hillside are as much part of its character as the botanical details.
Botanical Art & Illustration
I began my formal botanical art training with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, completing the Certificate in Botanical Illustration with Distinction before progressing to the Diploma in Botanical Illustration, also awarded with Distinction.
That training strengthened my observational skills and deepened my understanding of botanical illustration, but my practice has increasingly drawn me back outdoors. I’m fascinated by the relationship between a plant and the place in which it grows, and by the adaptations that allow seemingly delicate species to survive Scotland’s changing weather and often demanding landscapes.
An Evolving Collection
My work continues to grow from these encounters. Individual paintings become part of a wider record of the plants I find, study and return to, particularly those of Bennachie, the Cairngorms and Scotland’s wild landscapes.
Through my paintings and field notes, I hope to share some of the extraordinary detail found in plants we might otherwise walk straight past.