About Penny

Penny was a self-taught water-colourist living and working in Denmark, on the south coast in the Great Southern region of Western Australia.
In the 1980s Penny did pencil work of old Colonial buildings. Each stone or brick would be meticulously drawn. Some limited edition prints remain.
Later she did detailed depictions of native plants, either from native bush or bush blocks near her town, and in winter, when flowers are scarce, she depicted quirky representations of found objects, shells, feathers, bugs and butterflies.

Penny had a dry-brush technique, learnt over many years since her first foray into native plants, some thirty odd years ago. She used to layer her colour with a fine brush [usually 3/000, hand-made in Yorkshire, England] until the correct colour was apparent. Botanical art consists of accurate depictions of plants together with aesthetically pleasing painting.

Penny did not pencil in first, as do most botanical artists as she would lose interest when it came to colour in and maintained that ‘nothing is neat in nature’.

She tried to paint every day, but sometimes life got in the way of this. With the aid of a daylight globe she coped, wearing spectacles and saving the magnifying glass for later on.

Penny’s artworks are found privately and in collections here and overseas and are part of the Janet Holmes a Court collection.
A founding member of the Botanical Artists Group WA [BAG WA] and is featured in ‘Brush with Gondwana’, which came out in 2008 [Janda Gooding, Fremantle Press] is a book with a chapter on each of the then six BAG members and accompanied by beautiful illustrations.
Janet Holmes a Court was heard to ask ‘what does she use an eyelash of a mouse?’                                  
written by Jennie Partington.

PENNY LEECH b England 1947 d 4th March 2018