Details of the botanical illustrations
produced during and after the Endeavour
voyage.

ED04

THE WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS

Where Sydney Parkinson was unable to complete a water-colour before the fresh
specimen had wilted and faded, his system was to make a quick outline field sketch
in pencil, colouring in just enough detail for accurate completion later aided by
observations in writing, normally on the back of each sheet of paper.

Before his death towards the end of the voyage, Parkinson had completed two
hundred and eighty out of over nine hundred drawings and the system enabled five
other artists, Thomas Burgis, John Cleveley, John Frederick Miller, James Miller and
especially Frederick Polydore Nodder to finish the work in England under the
supervision of Banks and Solander and with the aid of the pressed and dried
specimens which are still preserved in the British Museum (Natural History).