Our lady of the flowers

The archetypal Armour painting (there are three walls full in one section of this show) is the lush, sumptuously coloured, richly painted flower and fruit still life. However these date from her sixties, seventies, and eighties, when she wallowed in texture and hue, preferring to offset splendid vermillion, crimson, and orange blooms arranged in antique china vases against warm velvety fabrics and plush maroon drapes. Here the fruit is succulent and juicy, the petals delicate, luminous jewels, the fragrance heavy and sensual. Her vigorous approach to oil paint, which she uses with obvious enjoyment, prevents her falling into the ''prettiness'' trap.

Armour didn't always use bold colour, as this lovely exhibition, with its mass of treasures loaned from the walls of private collectors, demonstrates. Her early style was more restrained, muted, using a lot of white to achieve a chalky surface. Little shimmer, certainly no gloss, but none the less impressive. You can see a group of three pictures from 1935 including a white Cyclamen, plus a pale green Cantaloupe which won her her first serious attention, the 1937 Guthrie award at Edinburgh's RSA.

She was already 35. Always practical, Armour kept accounts from the start. These show that until her late forties expenses for oils, canvas, and framing regularly outran her income from sales. Today's prices of #5000 to #15,000 have been a long time coming. Three of the best pictures here are for sale. Russet Apples 1969 and Oak Leaves and Cactus Flower 1986 have a strong simplicity lacking in some more decorative flower pieces.

Armour's father was a keen gardener and her uncle an enthusiastic botanist. Her first memories are of walks near her home in Blantyre, Lanarkshire. ''My uncle carried a little book, Culpepper's Almanac. It was illustrated with lovely drawings. He knew all the wild flowers. He encouraged me to draw - I learnt it from the root up. I remember the exact shield shapes of leaves where they joined the stem. I took my drawings to the botany teacher at Hamilton Academy, a lovely new building then!''

The art mistress was painter Penelope Beaton, Armour's key inspiration. ''I knew I had to be an artist!'' Her parents didn't object when she decided to go to Glasgow School of Art, winning a bursary in 1920. Despite being the eldest of six, and having to look after squalling babies sometimes, she says: ''They were happy days. My mother's family was artistic. My father was a steelworker but he was very keen on education.''

She did well at art school, winning the sole post-diploma bursary of #66. ''I loved it. We all got on. The girls were segregated from the boys for classes, but we never thought anything of it.'' As a postgraduate, to her relief she was left much alone. ''The head of painting was Greiffenhagen, who was stuck back with the Pre-Raphaelites. He insisted on religious or classical subjects and dark tones. But things had moved on. In second year a marvellous teacher showed slides of Impressionist pictures. I thought they were terrific! Nothing highfalutin'. I'd done a Birth of Christ for my diploma. That was enough! I decided to paint a pit-head scene with figures for my post-diploma. I started with a church spire but wiped that out and went and drew a pit head. On Saturdays I cleaned for my granny - and got rid of the beetles! I painted her in her shawl and apron for the picture. I was the first

person to do a

modern, everyday scene for a Diploma picture!''

However it cost her the top student prize and she left GSA to train as a teacher. She'd taught evening class to earn money while studying: ''Long days; I was getting home at 10pm.'' On graduation she taught in ''a really poor school down by the docks. The kids had real spunk. I decided we were going to have fun! I liked the kids.'' She also liked fellow painter William Armour. They were married in 1927, forcing her to resign her teaching job. Married women couldn't work in those days. It was worth it.

''In 52 years we never had a quarrel. He was a lovely man - and very good looking. He was a better draughtsman than me too!'' At first they lived in Milngavie, where they started the Milngavie Art Club. In 1953 they moved to Kilbarchan where Armour lived till 1995. ''We bought the house because it had a big north-facing room with two windows where in the old days weavers had their looms. No sun came in to make shadows and disturb your painting.'' She worked hard but rarely sold a picture. By 1951 she was teaching still life at Glasgow Art School. ''As the wife of the head of painting I kept very quiet!''

The students were keen on colour and this influenced Armour. ''I learned more from my students than they ever did from me!'' Colleagues in Edinburgh like William Gillies and Anne Redpath also encouraged a radical change in colour and greater freedom of brushwork. ''Gillies was great, a homely wee genius. He was out to help everyone.''

many of the flowers were from her garden. ''To keep them fresh I studied them there first, made up my mind which ones were at the right stage. Then I arranged them in a jug. You had to work fast. I could paint for five hours standing at the easel. My right arm is still stronger - and longer - than my left that just held the brushes. Your limbs become part of your job - like miners!'' Did she ever make mistakes and scrape out a part of a painting? ''No, I usually just made up my mind and did it first time.''

Armour also did landscapes and seascapes, using pastels outdoors. ''I wish I'd done more. I love pastels - you can use them in a quick way. And pastels translate well into oils back in the studio.'' She painted along the Clyde and Ayrshire coast, in Dumfriesshire and Ireland. She never painted big canvases. ''I didn't fancy it.''

Billcliffe's vibrant display of painted tulips, poppies, amaryllis, magnolias, lilies, pansies, anemones, polyanthus, clematis, cyclamen, and peonies is better than a flower shop. Sensational! Also at Billcliffe, Christine McArthur pays tribute to Armour in Anemones in Mary Armour's Jug, while experimenting with a new, bold, expressive use of paint. I adore her Alphabet series (A is for Artichoke and Arrowroot; H is for Haricot Vert and Horseradish), where she deploys a witty light touch on all sorts of plants.

n Both shows run until May 30.