Scottish Borders based botanical artist, Rachel Sutherland, trained as a Landscape Architect at Edinburgh University and is a Director of the Scottish Society of Botanical Artists. Careful observation of both plants and the landscape are a central part of her practice which was founded in the early years in Sri Lanka where she was awarded the Geoffrey Bawa Scholarship to do a conservation plan of Brief Garden. It was as artist in residence of this garden that Rachel learned to portray plants as a method of identification. Her botanical work is in watercolour. Her landscapes are oil on canvas of the Lammermuirs, one of which received the Torness Cup for best painting in the Berwickshire Art Society Show in Duns Castle 2021. “I work on vellum and on paper, to create luminous paintings of both beauty and accuracy. The landscapes I paint are much larger, in oil on canvas, which take months to create. Pen and ink or oil pastel sketches make up my field work in little books.” Rachel is currently a part-time lecturer in Landscape Design and Ecology at Borders College, a creative from her garden studio and a regular visitor to Sri Lanka and India where she paints in tropical warmth.