Indian Pipe Painting

Indian Pipe (Monotropa Uniflora) watercolor, 13"h x 10"w.

This painting is a new version of one of my favorite plants. Herb and I first came across this member of the Monotropaceae family years ago during a Fourth of July hike we took at Rachel Carson Conservation Park in Maryland when we lived in near-by Sandy Spring. It had been a very wet summer and the tiny flowering stalks of this ghostly apparition were all over the forest floor. I was charmed by their delicate beauty and decided to pick one to take home so that I could draw it.

When we got back to our house a few hours later, I unpocketed my prize only to find that it had turned completely black! In my disappointment I began an internet search, trying to find out what kind of plant it was, and why it was so perishable. I've been captivated by this family of myco-heterotrophic plants ever since, and painted a number of portraits of other family members such as the Yellow and Red Pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys), and the elusive Fragrant Pinesap (Monotropsis odorata) which I've documented in this blog. These members of the Ericacea family (they are relatives of heaths and rhododendrons) live in deep shade, have no chlorophyll to produce their own food, and must draw their sustenance from mycorrhyzal fungi that colonize other trees' roots. 

A few years later, after another very wet spring, we returned to the Rachel Carson tract and found another extraordinary flush of blooms, even lusher than the first one.  By this time I had acquired my first digital camera, and was able to take lots of photos of these flowers. In addition to newer photos, I still use that first set in my artwork, and this painting was done from those.

Wanting to incorporate some of the new techniques I learned at John Pastoriza Pinol's Brookside Gardens workshop, I put masking fluid over the lines after transferring the drawing to the watercolor paper, and laid down very pale washes of the three primary colors.

Step 1: color washes over masked line work

When that was thoroughly dry, it was time to remove the mask, soften the edges of the lines and then gradually build up color. At first glance Indian Pipe appears to be ghostly white, but the color is actually more subtle: the stems have hints of flesh coloring, particularly at the curved neck, and as the stalks age, dark spots emerge here and there where drying or insects have nicked the edges of the filmy scales.

Step 2: building up the color

As with my previous Monotropa paintings, I decided to include some of the dried leaves and debris on the forest floor to give the plants a base, and to allow the pale stems to stand out better.

Step 3: defining the shapes with deeper color

It was hard to decide how much of the forest floor to include, and how far up to extend the background, whether to include some of the green leaves behind. I hope the final painting strikes the right balance.

Step 4: adding a suggestion of green leaves

Carolina Silverbell Tree

Carolina Silverbell (Halesia carolina), watercolor, 18" x 14."

The first post of 2019 is my finished painting of the Carolina Silverbell Tree (Halesia carolina). The painting was actually finished in early fall of last year, when the seed pods began to ripen. It was then that I was able to finally finish painting the last pod on the lower left, but I was busy with so many other things that I had forgotten to post it. The painting now shows the complete sequence from the flowers and emerging leaves of early spring, through the development and final ripening of the seed pods in the fall.

I'm hoping that a few of the seeds will turn out to be viable and germinate this coming spring. It would be wonderful to have a few seedlings of this lovely and unusual native tree to share with family and friends. Happy New Year!

Magnolia Seed Pod

Magnolia Seed Pod.

Back in October I had the opportunity to take John Pastoriza Pinol's workshop at Brookside Gardens, and I've been looking forward to sharing what I learned. John is a superb botanical artist who shares the distinction of also being a botanist, and he really knows his stuff.

First, he shared some tips for drawing accurately, focusing on the natural geometry that seed pods and leaves follow regardless of the species, and other botanical features such as leaf veins. Most seeds and pine cones are arranged in a way that follows the Fibonacci mathematical sequence that yields a spiral. How to foreshorten these structures to create a sense of 3-dimensional perspective is always a challenge.

John Pastoriza Pinol at Brookside Gardens workshop.

Explaining natural geometries.

Another technique new to me was the use of masking fluid, and applying it with a calligraphy pen. I had used masking fluid on a watercolor landscape  years before, but I had used a brush (ruining it in the process), and the process seemed so complicated, it hardly seemed worth the time and effort.

John's technique is to mask most of the lines of a drawing, including the outer edges, in order to leave very fine lines on the white paper, something that would be impossible to accomplish with just a brush and washes. Interestingly, this only works on Arches paper, and John explained that this manufacturer uses several layers of cotton fibers sandwiched between layers of sizing. Other watercolor paper manufacturers use only two layers of fiber with a layer of sizing in the middle, so if one applies masking fluid to those papers, the masking fluid will take off bits of fibers from the upper layer when it is removed, weakening the paper on the painted side.

Brookside Gardens had provided us a variety of interesting seed pods and leaves to work with, but I had brought a Magnolia seed pod that I'd picked a few years before that had dried into a very interesting state of disarray, and decided I'd stick with that.

Photo of my Magnolia seed pod.

Drawing this seed pod was a challenge, and putting masking fluid over the complicated line work, even more so. Once the masking fluid had dried, I was ready to start painting with very pale washes: Vanadium Yellow first, in the area immediately surrounding the highlights that were to be left white, which John referred to as the areas of "moon-glow." After this wash had completely dried, it was followed by a wash of Perylene Red in the areas of body color, and after that dried,  a wash of Cerulean Blue Hue for the shadow areas. As you can see, these pigments are very transparent, barely visible here. This was as far as I got on the second day.

Step 1: pale washed in primary colors.

On the last day of the workshop, stronger color was introduced: first a wash of Quinacridone Gold, then a chestnut color mixed from Quinacridone Gold with a bit of Perylene Red. When that was thoroughly dry, the mask was removed. We didn't have much more time, but John demonstrated how to begin the soften the edges of the masked lines to give the illusion of depth with a damp stiff-bristled brush called a Cosmotop spin. This works well with leaf veins also. The idea is to use a drier brush with each successive layer to build up the colors in a painting.

Step 2: gold and chestnut washes.

I wish the workshop had lasted a few more days, so that I could have learned ways to further refine my piece. As it was, I worked on it in the following weeks, gradually building up the darker colors layer by layer until getting what you see at the top of this post. I'm not sure it's quite finished yet--I may add a seed falling off or a fallen seed or two to the composition.

Little Brown Jugs

Variable-Leaf Heartleaf (Hexastylis heterophylla) and Little Brown Jug (Hexastylis arifolia),
watercolor with colored pencil, 17"h x 14"w.

Here's my most recent painting: an illustration of two unusual plants from the forests of southwestern Virginia. Hexastylis are part of the Aristolochia family (Pipevine), and considered a segregate of the genus Asarum (Wild Ginger). These plants are native to the eastern US forests and like Wild Ginger, have inconspicuous flowers that hide under the foliage. The flowers are pollinated by ants and/or beetles.

I saw these plants for the first time during a Virginia Native Plant Society (VNPS) spring field trip to this area in 2017. The unusual flowers, the "Little Brown Jug" (Hexastylis arifolia) and the weirdly-mottled, elaborate flower of the Variable-Leaf Heartleaf (Hexastylis heterophylla), intrigued me, and I wanted to illustrate both plants in one painting.

The flowers bloom in the spring just as the leaves are emerging from the ground. I worked from a number of different photos, some taken in different locations, so it's quite possible that the mature leaf on the lower left is actually yet another species, Hexastylis virginica--there were no flowers on that specimen photographed in Pandapas Pond in late summer.

Line drawing in ink

As usual, I started my painting with a pencil drawing and once I'd settled on a final composition, inked the lines to trace onto the watercolor paper. At first I had thought of including a lovely orange eft (a juvenile salamander) photographed at a different location during the same trip, it was such a neat thing to capture on film! You can see a bit of the drawing of the eft under the tracing paper here, but I discarded this idea as detracting from the original intent, which was to focus on the unusual flowers of these plants.

First stage: colored pencil on the flowers with watercolor underpainting.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any other photos along the way to the finished piece. The hardest part of the painting was deciding how much of the leaf litter to include, and how to shape it to give continuity to the painting while presenting the plants in context. I hope the finished painting gives the impression of looking at a small piece of the ground in the woods.

The Ginko Grove at Blandy

The Ginko Grove at Blandy Farm, watercolor, 10" x 14."

The Blandy Sketch Group had its last plein air outing on Halloween. The day turned out to be the last really warm, sunny day of the season, with temperatures in the 70's. What better way to spend a nice afternoon than painting in such a lovely setting?

The ginko grove lies at the very back of the Blandy Farm Virginia State Arboretum property, and was planted as an experiment to determine the germination ratio of male to female trees from seed (which turned out to be about 50-50).  Because the female ginko fruit is foul-smelling, planting female trees on city streets was banned during the early years of the 20th Century. Since tree nurseries seldom, if ever, sell female trees, this was the first time I'd ever encountered the offensive fruit, which was thick under the female trees. I'm glad we were warned to bring old shoes--it took almost a week of airing on the porch for the smell to wear off my gardening shoes after our excursion.

The leaves were just starting to turn yellow, so the grove was not as spectacular as I'd hoped, but the hollow with the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop was still quite a sight. I hope my watercolor sketch conveys a bit of its charm. Here's a photo at the actual location.

Ginko grove at Blandy Farm

Late Fall Color

Back yard in early morning light.

This fall had been so warm the leaves didn't start turning until late October, and didn't reach their peak until the first week in November. The leaves were not as colorful as in other years, perhaps because we had such a rainy September... Then as they were showing their best, a gale stripped most of them in one afternoon.

Back yard mid-morning

Front yard on Halloween

Side yard with Autumn Blaze maple.

The purple aster flowers (Symphiotrichum oblongifolium) have lasted a long time--the two small offshoots I split from the original clump and planted in the back beds also bloomed, though they probably won't reach the size of the first clump for another year or so. I divided the Thalia daffodils in the front yard and re-planted a bunch, the leftovers went in one of the back beds along with more daffodils. The other daffodils in the front beds probably could have used the same treatment, but I didn't have the energy to dig them all--they will have to wait another year.

Purple Asters (Symphiotrichum oblongifolium)

Taking advantage of the end of the season sales, I acquired a new Peony, 'Bartzella' (a lovely hybrid of a herbaceous and a tree Peony with yellow flowers), and a few more shrubs and bulbs. Most of these are already in the ground, but a few late purchases won't be shipped until next week. With the increasingly shorter and colder days, not to mention the frequent rains, it's getting harder to find decent weather for my garden chores now--the windows of opportunity present themselves less often.

West side garden

Just as I was finishing this post, our first snow arrived on Nov. 15, setting a record not seen in the past 22 years. The accumulation ended up being about 3-4", enough to lend a nice touch to our view, and as chance would have it, my plant order arrived exactly on that day! The weather has made it impossible to plant anything until the snow melts, which will take a few more days. I expect there may be at least one day next week when I can finally get those late arrivals in the ground.

Mid-November snow

Soon the ground will freeze hard and it will be time to put the garden to sleep for the winter. My gardening will then be confined to poring over colorful plant catalogs and dreaming... It's the season to spend my days in the studio working on paintings, remembering the glories of the past season, and looking forward to another spring.

Levant Cotton Painting

Levant Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum 'Nigra'), watercolor

Here is my finished painting of the Levant Cotton for the US Botanic Garden. I hope it gives a good sense of the plant's characteristics, its lovely flowers, unusual foliage and fruit (the bolls), as well as the way the bolls open when ripe, displaying their cotton-wrapped seeds.

I plan to take the painting to the USBG in the next week or so to be scanned, the image will become part of their collection. The original painting will be returned to me and will be offered for sale then. If you are interested in purchasing it, please contact me to request the price.

Artist in Residence at US Botanic Garden

Painting at the US Botanic Garden

The first week in October was my week as Artist in Residence at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C. This unique opportunity came my way as a member of the Botanic Artists Society of the National Capital Region (BASNCR), a regional chapter of ASBA. In conjunction with the American Society of Botanic Artists' (ASBA) exhibition: Botanical Art Worldwide: America's Flora displayed in the West Gallery, the USBG presented the "Botanical Art in Action" program as a way of showing the public how botanic artists create their work. Artist members of the BASNCR volunteered and were assigned one week for each of us to be present and create a work from the garden's collection.

We were asked for our preferences in plants we'd like to illustrate, and I gave my first choice as the ornamental Black Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum 'Nigra') AKA Levant Cotton, a plant I'd admired a few years back when they had some lovely specimens growing outdoors. I'd collected some cotton bolls with seeds at the time, and planted them in my garden the following spring.

My plants didn't grow as well as theirs, of course (I have very poor soil), and the seeds from them turned out to not be viable, but I had a chance to see the unusual blossoms, which were beautiful! It was primarily the flowers that had beckoned me to choose this plant to illustrate, though the bolls are also lovely.

The USBG staff found me a nice specimen to work from, but as expected, it was too late in the year for flowers. No problem--the plant had many well-developed bolls, and I had brought some of my photos of the flowers to try to incorporate them into my piece.

The specimen.

The specimen was quite large, my first problem was how to approach the drawing--with just a few days to work there, doing the entire plant would be an impossible task. The only solution was to simplify: select one or two typical branches and focus on those. With that in mind, I set out to capture those branches in a line drawing and compose the arrangement.

Step 1: a line drawing.

The leaves were a challenge because they varied considerably in shape, and folded and bent in particular places, making them look very different from different angles. I traced my first drawing over a couple of times to correct the proportions, and broke up some of the stems to come up with a pleasing composition. This process took up the first day, while I answered questions about what I was doing and chatted with a number of visitors that came into the gallery.

Since I live some two hours away, I'd planned to spend two nights with my sister who lives in the northern DC suburbs, to cut down on my mileage. The rush hours traffic in the DC area being what it is, the actual travel time was only a bit shorter than from my house, but it was still a big help.

The following day I laid a piece of tracing paper over my drawing to do a shade and shadow study. While I was doing this, I shared the gallery with a class of some twenty 8-10 year old children who were learning how to re-pot an orchid.  Despite the added noise, listening to their class was a lot of fun. I was impressed by how well-behaved these children were, how engaged, and how the instructor was throwing them some pretty big words such as "epiphytes" and "terrestrial." After the class I asked what school they were from and was told they were from a charter school in DC--good for them!

Step 2: a shade and shadow study.

I added a detail of an open cotton boll in the empty corner in the afternoon. Once I had this shade and shadow study, I felt confident enough to start tracing my drawing in ink, ready to transfer it to the watercolor paper. I finished my tracing by the end of the second day there.

The following day I was ready to start painting, but since the unusual colors of the plant were so challenging, I thought it best to do some practice on a separate swatch of paper first. The artificial lighting also changed the colors somewhat, making them even harder to render.

The plan in artificial light.

Step 3: color practice strip.

My theory was that the underlying color should be green, overlaid by a reddish-purple wash. As a test, I did the leaf on the right using this approach, and the one on the left with the opposite--the red-purple wash below with green on top.  Applying the green first seemed to yield better results, so I went with that. Now I was ready to start the piece in earnest.

I started with the cotton boll on the upper left, laying in the shape of the cotton first, then the pod. while the washes dried, I began laying in the color of the flowers at the upper right. This was as far as I got by the end of the third day.

Step 4: painting the boll and flowers.

I stayed home the next two days to work on my garden and celebrate Herb's birthday, then drove back to USBG on Saturday morning. As anticipated, there were more people here today than on the previous weekdays, and I talked to a wide spectrum of visitors from many different states and abroad. It's a wonder I managed to get anything done, as I continued to add detail to the boll and flowers, while working in the greens of the leaves.

Step 5: underpainting the leaves.

At the end of the day, I had the underlying green for a few more leaves. The next day was our BASNCR quarterly meeting, and I would have no time for more painting. I'd have to finish the rest of the painting at home, relying only on my reference photos and sketches. During the first week after my on-site work, I put in the colors on the leaves and the first unopened boll on the left.

Step 6: more leaves and stems.

Step 7: the first boll and more leaves.

Step 8: two more bolls, leaves and stem

After letting the green wash settle for some days, I started putting the second, purplish-red wash over the leaves. Painting the larger leaves was particularly daunting--I was afraid that the green wash would run if the second wash was too watery.

Step 8: finishing color of the leaves

I was one leaf away from finishing the second wash on the leaves when I took a break to attend John Pastoriza Pinol's wonderful botanical art workshop at Brookside gardens. I wish I'd known about John's theories on color and transparency before I'd started on my piece, I would have taken a very different approach to my palette selection. But, even in these last stages, I learned enough to want to modify this piece to some extent. I've been working on the leaf surfaces and veins, trying to bring in more detail: the veining and reflected light, as well as the light on the bolls, and more color overall into the piece.

This story has taken so long to develop and write, I'm going to close this post now, without the finished piece, and show the modifications on the finished work in the next post.