Top botanical artist still serves best ice cream
Published Tuesday 8 March 2016
Draped in her favourite apron and her dazzling smile, it’s hard to believe that you’re actually face-to-face with Betty Hinton, one of the top 100 botanical artists in the world.
This humble lady, who for the past 32 years has served up biodynamic ice cream ‘to die for’ at the Floravilla Ice Cream Factory next to the Cow Bay Hotel in the Daintree, is at the ready when you arrive to sample what has been described as some of the finest ice cream flavours in the world.
It’s an incredible experience to enjoy the ambience and ‘lick away’ as soft rain falls around you. Betty will drop by and ask if you’re happy with your choice. Then she’s off to meet more customers.
“We’ve had a busier than usual February and March with many American and Chinese visitors,” she says.
But what is truly astonishing is to be in the company of such immense talent.
Ms Hinton is credited with being one of the top 100 botanical artists in the world and has received global accolades, including from the King of Nepal. World-renowned botanical art collector, Dr Shirley Sherwood OBE, lent Ms Hinton’s art to Washington’s Smithsonian Institute at an exhibition entitled “Masterworks by the finest 20th Century Artists”.
She has had 13 solo exhibitions at major centres in eastern Australia, several commissions for 12 picture calendars, book illustrations and book dust jackets. By invitation Betty exhibited in conjunction with the Ellis Rowan Exhibition at the Cairns Regional Gallery where her paintings were hung with works by Robert Tucker and Sydney Parkinson. Parkinson was Captain Cook’s botanical artist.
Ms Hinton specialises in Australian flora and fauna. Her medium is watercolour on 100% cotton rag paper.
Her botanical illustration is always painted from a live specimen giving her an intimacy with her subject. Very careful attention is given to botanical detail and colour matching but artistic license is applied to create a pleasing composition; where possible fauna is painted from field observation.
You can bet that she is thinking of her next work, but there is ice cream to make and sell and she loves every minute of her day. It sure makes for an ideal way to spend time in the Daintree.
