This egg tempera painting was recently completed for California friends who are nicknamed “The Tangerines.” I couldn’t find any fresh fruit labeled Tangerines at the grocery store. So Satsuma oranges had to play the part. There were 10 orange models lounging around my studio at one point. The dark, hazy background is supposed to be San Bernardino Mountains.
Beautiful frame by Donna Erwin at Columbia River Gallery in Troutdale.
Cichorium intybus normally swarms in autumn fields alongside Queen Anne’s Lace. But this year, Chicory was very elusive, at least in the East County area. I finally found a plant nearby my day job, and it provided me with several specimens.
This was my last contribution to the Sisterhood of Traveling Paints. Since I only like to do wildflowers, it was becoming difficult to find specimens. And it’s quite time-consuming to keep up with the monthly 2-page submission. I really enjoyed the project. The Sisterhood plans to have an exhibit of all the sketchbooks some time in 2017.
Iris tenax , “Tough-leaved Iris” or “Oregon Flag” makes a brief appearance in late spring. This roadside plant lasted long enough to do a drawing of the actual flower, create a color chart, and take photos.
I transferred the drawing into the “sketchbook” and the final watercolor was completed after the bloom had wilted.
Impatiens capensis, “Jewelweed” is also known as “Touch-Me-Not” because the seed pod explodes if touched. The explosion scatters seeds widely, enabling the plant to dominate an area. It was fascinating to study under the microscope. Two types of flowers grow on the plant: The orange, sometimes spotted, flower that attracts pollinators; and a small, self-pollinating flower that grows later in the season as a last-ditch effort to propagate. See the sketchbook page above for the detailed dissection drawing.
The large leaf was difficult to render in watercolor because it threatened to buckle the paper and ruin the previous page of the Sisterhood Sketchbook. I used colored pencil to finish it, but didn’t really capture the yellow-green tones. The leaves of Jewelweed can be crushed and used to soothe poison ivy rashes.
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!
At the end of March, I was lucky enough to have a spot in Colleen Barry’s week-long Anatomy of the Figure class at Gage Academy in Seattle. Colleen (colleenbarryart.com) is classically trained and IMHO, Greatest in the World of contemporary classical artists. She is based in Brooklyn, NY, but travels for teaching.
I first took the class in June 2014, and it was revelatory. I had never heard of Bargue drawings, sight-size, and the other classical methods she taught. I was trained to construct the figure beginning with ovals and cylinder shapes.
How did I have 7-½ years of art training and miss the day my instructors talked about the Russian and French Academies? Answer: They never did!
Colleen’s class taught me a whole new way to approach drawing that works not only with the figure, but with plants and landscapes. We started with measuring and blocking in — creating a “constellation” of points and lines. Then we spent a couple of days of defining shadow area shapes, followed filling in the “twilight” zones where dark turns to light. Finally, we gave the figures a “flickering flame,” strengthening certain lines of light and dark.
My anatomy background definitely gave me a jump start, and I really like the look obtained with the Academy methods. My first effort, the male model, was better than this year, the female. Beginner’s mind.
This year a group I belong to, Oregon Botanical Artists, launched a project called, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Paints. We each bought a Stillman & Birn hardbound sketchbook, 5.5 x 8.5 inches. And beginning in January, each month we fill a page or two with botanical sketches, notes, and even fully colored paintings. Then the book is passed on to the next artist. At the end of the year, the sketchbooks will have traveled through the entire Sisterhood and return to their owners filled with pages of paint and colored pencil.
The first plant of the year was a carnivorous Sundew (Drosera capensis) that I bought at the Curiosity Gallery art fair. The sticky tendrils, in which a fruit fly may find itself, are very hot pink. I used Dr. PH Martin dyes and a crowquill pen. This is the partly completed page. I forgot to scan the final before shipping it on. But I’ll get it back next December.
There aren’t many wildflowers in early February, but mosses are plentiful. Wendy and I took a Valentine’s Day hike at Oxbow Park not far from our house. I was looking for Lover’s Moss (Aulacomnium androgynum), but found lots of Capillary Thread Moss (Bryum capillare) instead.
It was fascinating to observe this moss under the microscope. As it dried, the translucent, avascular “leaves” curled to the right (dextrous spiral), but a drop of water brought them instantly back to life.
Sugar Pine Cone / Crater Lake National Park
Artwork by Elise Bush
featured in New Exhibit at U.S. Botanic Garden in DC
(Washington, DC) — A new exhibit at the the United States Botanic Garden (USBG) in Washington, DC, displaying artworks depicting familiar, rare, and iconic plants and trees of America’s national parks includes a 12 x 16 inch watercolor by Elise Bush depicting the Sugar Pine Cone (Pinus lambertiana), a species found in Crater Lake National Park.
Flora of the National Parks opened Thursday, Feb. 18 at the USBG on the National Mall. Free and open to the public through Oct. 2, 2016, the exhibition features more than 80 illustrations, paintings, photographs, and other art forms ranging in size from intimate 12-inch pieces to large-scale, 7-foot dramatic panoramas that showcase key plant life in national parks across the country. The USBG is staging the show to mark this year’s centennial of the National Park Service (NPS) and to highlight the diversity of the nation’s flora protected within national parks.
The Sugar Pine, scientific name Pinus lambertiana, is a native of the Pacific Coast and found in Crater Lake National Park. It is the largest species of pine, commonly growing to 130–200 feet tall. It has the longest cones of any conifer, mostly 9–20 inches long.
Botanist David Douglas named the sugar pine in 1827 to honor British pine expert Aylmer Bourke Lambert. Native Americans used the sugar pine’s large, nutritious seeds for food.
Artist Elise Bush, a member of Oregon Botanical Artists, lives in Troutdale, Oregon. Her studio is at the Troutdale Art Center on East Historic Columbia River Highway.
Artworks were selected from among submissions by hundreds of artists last fall for the eight-month show, which is installed in the USBG Conservatory near the foot of the U.S. Capitol on the National Mall, 100 Maryland Ave. S.W., Washington, DC. The USBG is one of the oldest botanic gardens in North America, with more than one million visitors annually. More information about the exhibit, programs, and visiting the USBG is available at www.USBG.gov/FloraoftheNationalParks.
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http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/01/curious_gallery_wonder_cabinet.html
Curiosity Gallery and Wonder Cabinet is a yearly art fair that definitely contributes to “Keeping Portland Weird!” It’s a show of art and science, mainly the science of anatomy and necropsy. There were lectures on taxidermy and the rules of road kill. If you pick up road kill either for the BBQ or a skull collection, be sure you don’t get charged with “poaching.” It’s illegal to take a deer, for example, but okay to scrape up a possum for stew or an interesting dissection.
I haven’t done a dissection in years, so it was fascinating to slice into the sheep’s eye. And my skills are still sharp enough (haha) to separate all the delicate eye muscles and name them for the Oregonian reporter (above).
I purchased a carnivorous Sun Dew plant (Drosera capensis) from one of the art fair vendors. There were beautiful skulls and mounted insects for sale, as well as anatomical art, such as taxidermied mice in little outfits or a bird skeleton wearing a wedding dress. I find Memento Mori art somewhat interesting. But my main interests were the purely scientific specimens, and about half the attendees shared my point of view. It is more about admiration for the beautiful elegance of bones and anatomy and less about a fascination with death and Victorian Steam-Punk Goth art. (I went through my Goth phase in the late 70s.)
The event lasts 2 days and is held every January in Portland, so check their website: www.curiositygallery.com
Meanwhile, you can always visit http://paxtongate.com/paxton to see similar art and specimens on N. Mississippi Ave.
Here’s a beetle illustrated in egg tempera for a local entomologist, Rob. It would fit in a basketball player’s hand. Fortunately, these live in Brazil, not in my backyard.
Macrodontia cervicornis
In Fall 2015, local artists teamed up with Soaring Hearts Artists to create paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and other works. The pieces will be auctioned tomorrow to benefit the Soaring Hearts art program (part of ALSO -Advanced Learning Systems of Oregon). Parris Foley is the dynamo who maintains the Soaring Hearts studio at her Infusion Gallery in Troutdale. She coordinated all the artists for this event.
For me, it was a rich experience to work with Janie — a young woman who is talented at painting, enjoys sipping lemonade, and whose favorite apple variety is Jazz. We created our painting, “Granny Smith’s Red Delicious Jazz Gala,” side by side. She had her eye on the Jazz apple, and it kept us focused because she knew she couldn’t eat it until our work was finished!
As a natural science illustrator, I tend to measure everything twice. Janie is very spontaneous. She drew the initial apple shapes holding her brush like a Sumi-e artist and worked just as quickly. I was shocked! Don’t we need a grid??
From there I mixed some colors and offered suggestions, but Janie knew what she was doing. Lastly, each apple needed a highlight. Dab. Dab. Dab. Dab. Janie nailed it. Then she grabbed the Jazz apple and took a bite.