Sketching the Nature of Umbria
I had an exceptional week teaching in the Italian countryside in Umbria with Winslow Art Center, and I couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic group of participants. There is a quote that I shared with them from Italian painter Cennino Cennini (c.1360 to 1427), “Now then, you of noble mind, who love this profession, come at once to art and accept these precepts: enthusiasm, reverence, obedience, and perseverance.” Obedience aside, it exemplified the way in which they approached the lessons and techniques I shared throughout the week. As you can see,… Read More
Iceland Travel Sketches
Iceland is all drama: volcanos, lava flows, cinder cones, geysers, tectonic plates, waterfalls, sheer cliffs, glaciers, frigid waters, shifting weather. It’s a place of all or nothing. All darkness, all daylight, all in, or stay home. But it’s also a place of great subtlety, where keeping your eyes wide open makes all the difference. My family spent a week exploring just a small fraction of the country. I took many photos but managed just a handful of sketches. Despite my best preparations and intentions, cold weather, gusty winds, big hikes, and traveling… Read More
Of Maps and Meaning
Maps convey both a sense of place and the experience and agenda of their maker. This map commemorates my trip to Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine this summer for the Arts and Birding workshop. It’s one thing to have your daily schedule or itinerary on a piece of paper; quite another to illustrate it and imbue it with additional meaning and memory: puffins flying overhead, the sound of the sea gently lapping on shore, moss carpeted forests of spruce and fir, winter wrens trilling their song in the silence. I hope… Read More
Jean Mackay
The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook
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