Debbie Bankert

Botanical Art & Illustration

Drawn from life, one specimen at a time

Watercolor, colored pencil, graphite and silverpoint studies of native and endangered plants — recorded where they grow, in the mountains of Western North Carolina and the cloud forest of northern Colombia.

Watercolor and graphite study of a pink lady slipper orchid in late bloom, its pouch deep rose, growing from a mossy fallen log.
Certificate
Botanical Art & Illustration,
Corcoran College of Art & Design
Field work
El Dorado Reserve, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia — two ASBA documentation grants
Current project
Native plants of Western North Carolina
Six plates

Recent plates

Six works
Pink lady slipper orchid in late bloom, pouch deeply veined rose, sepals drying to bronze, growing from a lichen-covered log.

Pink Lady Slipper in situ

Cypripedium acaule

View this painting
Deep aubergine hellebore flower nodding over pale green palmate leaves, its yellow-green stamens catching the light.

Lenten Rose, purple

Helleborus orientalis

View this painting
Four crimson-veined pitcher plant trumpets rising in a group, their green throats netted with red.

Mountain Sweet Pitcher Plant

Sarracenia rubra ssp. jonesii

View this painting
Six garlic bulbs hanging by their stems with trailing roots, an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly below them.

Garlic Harvest and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Allium sativum · Papilio glaucus

View this painting
Lily magnolia: a single blossom open at left with cream and rose-flushed tepals, on a bare branch entering from the lower right, a furled bud held above.

Lily Magnolia

Magnolia liliiflora

View this painting
Yellow-green hellebore flower with a rose-flushed throat, flanked by two furled buds on pale stems.

Lenten Rose, yellow

Helleborus orientalis

View this painting