International Sketchbook Exchange!

It has been forever since I posted last! Happily, I have been busy with some different projects and finally have something to post about. 

I belong to two fantastic groups on Facebook for botanical artists: Botanical Art for Beginners and Botanical Artists. Both contain artists from all over the world who share a common interest in and passion for botanical art and illustration. 

Earlier this year, a subset of artists decided to start an international sketchbook exchange, inspired by a similar endeavor by other artists in the group last year. I was thrilled to be invited to participate! 

There are 9 of us total, spanning the globe from here in the U.S. to Ireland, Italy, the UK, Austria, Turkey, and Singapore. We all agreed to purchase the same type of sketchbook, Stillman and Birn's hardbound sketchbook from the Zeta series in A5 size (approx. 5.5 x 8.5 inches.) The Zeta series contains 180lb paper suitable for both wet and dry media, but most importantly, it opens up to lay flat, so one can work on a spread of two pages fairly easily.

Initially, we thought we would stick to just botanical subject matter, but agreed that if inspiration struck differently, we could feel free to include other natural subjects or artistic interpretations (e.g., some of the artists do motif work or other ethnic design work.) We also agreed that we would do a minimum of one, two-page spread and maximum of two, two-page spreads.

Each of us started our sketchbooks with some sort of decorated title page and then created some art to open the book. I decided to go ahead and cover my sketchbook with a nice Italian book cloth and pasted endpapers of a beautiful handmade paper from my favorite store, Hollander's. 

 

I started with a title page that included our group name, Nature Miscellany - A Sketchbook Exchange and space at the top for each artist to write their name. 

Since this is an international effort, I wanted to include something about where my book is coming from, so I drew an outline of the state of Michigan and added a couple of small botanicals: the state tree, the eastern white pine, and the state flower, the apple blossom.



 


I began working on the sketchbook during the frenzy of spring wildflower season, so I did a two-page spread of graphite sketches of the nodding trillium and bloodroot, two species that I had specifically hunted for in the woods this season. 
 

   
I saved the second two-page spread for a wildflower that I have wanted to draw for several years: the yellow trout-lily. The mottled leaves, resembling trout, and graceful, curving blossoms are a treat to find all over the forest floor in early spring.

I mailed my sketchbook out for our first round of exchange last week. We are mailing east, and I am excitedly awaiting the arrival of our Singapore artist's book soon!

Each of us will then have about a month to do a sketch in the book we received and mail it on in the exchange. It should take roughly a year to complete all the books, and we will have a wonderful treasure filled with beautiful artwork from artists around the world! 

Stay tuned for posts on my latest sketchbook entries!

Pierce Cedar Creek Institute Retreat 2013! Afternoon of hiking and sketching...

If you have been following along, you know that I had the opportunity to spend a wonderful day at Pierce Cedar Creek Institute yesterday at an art retreat. I, along with about 8 other nature artists, spent time together catching up and creating some new artwork. We had a fantastic introductory class in etching with PCCI's first artist-in-residence, Doet Boersma. Read about it in my previous post.

After our etching class and a tasty lunch, we all spent the afternoon hiking the many trails at PCCI, sketching and painting whatever caught our attention. After such a long winter, it was a pleasure to have temperatures in the 60s and lots of sun! The woods are just starting to bud and spring plants are beginning to bloom.

I decided to hike one of the easier trails so I had plenty of time for drawing as I spotted wildflowers or other interesting subjects.

Three of us headed down toward the boardwalk behind the visitor's center, passing many,  pretty little spring beauties (Claytonia virginica) along the trail. These delicate, pink-striped flowers are among the first to pop up through the leaf litter each spring.

 


As we headed onto the boardwalk, I spotted a few blooming marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris). I missed the chance to sketch them last time I was here, so I set my gear down and decided to do a little drawing.

 

















Marsh marigold sketches are in graphite at the top of the page. Another plant that we saw everywhere was skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). They have some really interesting shapes and colors, so I had to stop and capture those, too. I ended up doing graphite and added colored pencil on top. Not the best combo, since it gets muddy and smears. But I wanted to add some color to indicate the deep maroon next to the light yellow-green in the same plant. 

In the swampy area near the rest of the skunk cabbage, I did a quick sketch of a tree with bright green moss growing by the roots. I chose to use gray toned paper for this one.

 

 Tree with skunk cabbage growing all around.

 My quick sketch on toned paper. I didn't do a great amount of detail, but really wanted to capture a bit of the moss.

 










I made my way up the blue trail to the Maple and Beech forest next. This is one of my favorite spots and one I visited before. The beech trees look so beautiful and delicate, especially the smaller ones, with their papery white leaves rustling in the breeze. 

Along this whole area, the forest floor is covered in leaf litter and other winter debris, but up throughout all of those leaves, sometimes growing right through them, are the spring wildflowers. I saw trout lily (Erythronium americanum) leaves everywhere, but only one blossom so far. My guess is that in the next week or two, that area will be bright with the curling stems and yellow blossoms. 


 





I also spotted more spring beauties and some clumps of light purple flowers that are slightly bigger than spring beauties. They also have a wonderful, hairy white stem. I believe these are hepatica. 
 

I found one with its three-lobed leaves intact and did some sketching on the same toned gray paper as the tree I did earlier. 

After I finished this study, I simply enjoyed walking the rest of the trail, looking for more flowers and listening to the birds singing. 

My last interesting find was right at the edge of the trail as it came out of the maple and beech forest into the prairie section. It was sunny on the path and I had my walking stick with me, as usual. I was studying the left side of the trail for wildflowers and heard a rustling off to my right. I stopped and saw a thick snake, about 14 inches long, with light tan and brown markings. 

It blended in perfectly with the surrounding leaf litter. It has stopped and was waiting for me to move on. Can you see it in the photo above? Its head is toward the top of the photo, right in between the sideways "V"-shaped tree branches and has two black patches on either side.

I took my camera out and captured a few photos before moving on. It flared its head out as it waited for me to leave, reminding me of a cobra. I thought it might be the elusive Massasauga rattlesnake, Michigan's only venomous snake. 

However, further research when I returned home revealed this to actually be an eastern hog-nosed snake. It is often mistaken for the Massasauga rattlesnake. Those dark head markings really clarified it for me - in any photos you see, the Massasauga has more of a striped appearance. Also, I read that the hog-nosed snake tends to flare its head when disturbed. Either way, a rare and beautiful sighting!

We finished the day by gathering in Doet's studio again to pick up our etching prints that we created earlier in the day and exchange business cards and contact information. I am so glad to have had the chance to visit PCCI and my artist friends, even if just for one day. I look forward to returning again!