Nature Illustration with Susan Sawyer:
A Day of Observation with Pencil & Brush
September 29 | 9 am – 2 pm | Ages 18+
$45 | Financial Assistance Available (email us)
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What can we as artist-naturalists see if we stop and look? We will walk, sit, draw, and paint, and come away with images of nature in autumn. After an introduction to tools and practices, we’ll head out to the nature trail to see what’s happening: trees and herbaceous plants towards the end of the growing season, flowers and seeds, eaten leaves, the leaf-eaters, the flowing river and its banks, the gathering birds. (In case of inclement weather, we will come inside to draw and paint gathered materials.)

Participants will need to bring:
Portable seating (a cushion, a lightweight folding stool, a 5-gallon bucket, or whatever you are comfortable carrying and sitting on)
A good sketchbook, suitable for wet and dry media. Canson XL Multi-media is a good choice. (The Drawing Board will give you a class discount)
Hat, water, lunch, snacks
A tote bag or basket or back pack to carry your gear in
All other materials will be provided by Susan: paints, brushes, pencils, pens, etc.

About Susan Sawyer:

Susan Sawyer is an artist-naturalist from South Woodbury and has been an educator, naturalist, illustrator, and teacher of art to adults in non-formal settings for decades. Susan worked for 9 years at North Branch Nature Center, and for 15 years was on the faculty of Union Institute & University’s Adult Degree Program, advising studies in science, art, or both – it’s that intersection of the two fields that she finds the most fertile and creative. She thinks observation and imagination are the beginnings of both science and art, and believes in having serious fun while learning.

“As an art teacher, I want students to practice some new skills, learn from observing their subjects, from their experiments, from their fellow students as well as me, and go away encouraged to continue. Working out in the field is focused on responding to a place and a day by spending time in it watching and drawing, getting some sense of it on the page from multiple scales and viewpoints. Style is less important than spirit! My current practice is mainly on paper, using watercolor, pencil, ink, and silverpoint. I’m interested in making pictures, often very close up, of native plants and invertebrates (and some with backbones, too). My aim these days is to make art that appeals to scientists, and science that appeals to artists.”

Academic credentials: BA in graphics and natural history from New College, Sarasota, Florida, 1971; MFA in visual art from Vermont College, 1993; Diploma in Botanical Art, Society of Botanical Artists, London, 2011

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