Traveling Paints update. Here are sketchbook contributions for March, April, and May.

The Common Garden Vetch (Vicia sativa) is a good example of my favorite type of botanical subject. This weed was growing in a construction zone along I-205 near my day job in Clackamas, Oregon. If I hadn’t been looking for a March specimen, I might not have given it more than a glance. But once I brought it home and started drawing, I was enraptured by the delicately twisting tendrils, the jaunty attitude of the leaves, and the shapely pink-violet flowers. The flowers and fruit have the same anatomy as other members of the Pea family (Fabaceae), such as Sweetpea.

In April, I went directly to Lewis & Clark State Park for a specimen of the Candy Flower (Claytonia sibirica) since I had seen it last year. The tiny white flowers are plentiful in lightly forested areas and sweet to observe under the microscope. Each petal has a “peppermint candy” stripe and the pink anthers look like tiny Race for the Cure ribbons.

May 2016: Back at Lewis & Clark SP. There were lots of Mary Blue Eyes and Bleeding Hearts, then I saw this Wallflower (Erysimum capitatum) dangling broken from the climbing wall at Broughton’s Bluff. I try to collect specimens thoughtfully (and mostly legally). This Wallflower was going to die. But now it has a page in the most beautiful sketchbook of the year: one of the Traveling Paints Sisters wrapped her book in copper and hammered a design on the cover. Wish I had scanned it!