Botanical Plate

A hand-tinted engraving of a flowering vine whose seeds drift off the page

An old engraved plate of an invented climbing vine comes to life on cream laid paper: open flowers, buds and feathery seed heads drawn entirely in fine hatched lines and dots, washed with thin watercolour that never quite stays inside the lines. The vine sways, a little engraved moth wanders the page and rests on a leaf, and every so often a seed lets go and floats away across the paper. It follows your clock: raking morning light, a flat noon, warm evening light and a lamp-lit night when the flowers fold shut. Breathe on it with the mouse to bend the tendrils and push the seeds, click to puff seeds off the nearest head, and with music on the flowers breathe, their stamens tremble on the beat and the drifting seeds shimmer with the spectrum.

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