Maggie Smith is a botanical artist living in East Sussex, currently specialising in botanical portraiture.

Maggie loves to draw outside in her Sussex garden and in the surrounding countryside, capturing the plants before her in ink pen on often very large sheets of paper. The weeds and wild flowers of the meadows, verges and seemingly innocuous plants and trees of woodlands fascinate her as much as the grander garden blooms.

"I love the meditative process of drawing with a fine liner pen, especially on very large scale work. I often leave these drawings as linear works but equally have always had a passion for colour, which I apply loosely in watercolour, ink and pen."

Maggie continues to work as a knitwear design consultant, but finds the joy of botanical art to be her new passion, and something very special which she began to explore during lockdown, setting up Yellow Minnow Sketch as the home of her drawings and products.

The large diptych flower border paintings, Picnic number one and two, were drawn and painted in a continuous/ongoing session over ten days, from April 18 to 28, 2023.