"Excellent composition, texture and technique", were the judge's comments about Lochiel artist Marjorie Roche's painting when awarding the 'Judge's Choice' from about a hundred entries at the 'Legacy of Banks and Solander' art exhibition held in the Canberra Botanic Garden Gallery.
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It was an exhibition of botanical art, focusing on plants collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on their discovery voyage of Australia to coincide with the 250th anniversary of Cooks voyage to Australia and the garden's 50th anniversary.
Marjorie began her artistic work with china painting, moved onto oils, pastels and water colour. It was the water colour that led to botanical drawing.
"I don't know why, but I became very interested in Australian native plants, rather than daisies and roses - everybody else can paint them," she said laughing.
Despite having spent 14 years of her working life in a drafting office producing maps for the NSW government, and turning 89 this November, she is still blessed with very good eyesight.
"We had to be very specific with attention to detail," she said.
The attention to detail is more than evident in her winning work which sold during the exhibition.
