Retreat
The sketches I’m posting today are from my weekend teaching at the Botanical Art & Nature Sketching Retreat at the Ashokan Center in New York’s Catskill Mountains earlier in November. Sixty-eight people from all over the country came for the weekend and it was an incredible convergence of artists. I was honored to teach alongside extraordinary botanical artists Wendy Hollender, Lara Call Gastinger, and GiacoMina Ferrillo, and to be in the company of so many warm, enthusiastic, and supportive people. Given my brother’s deteriorating health, I wasn’t sure whether to go but… Read More
A bit of weaving
Grass and twigs, pine needles and spider webs, plant fibers and lichen, pen and paint. We weave our nests over hours and days, the birds and I. The birds, of course, are the first artists. I’m just picking it up where they left off, in awe of the fine details and beautiful forms they’ve created. Tips and Techniques- Sketched with a Micron 005 sepia pen and painted with combinations of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber. Nests from the collection of the New York State Museum.
Nest Gallery
A tangle in the brush. Strips of woven grape vine and grass. A downy mass of cattails bound with sedges and reeds. No matter where I find them or what they’re made of, I simply find bird nests irresistible. I have been drawing and painting bird nests weekly since November, in part because I’ve been teaching a class on The Art of the Bird, but also because I love the challenge and the beauty of painting nests. So, today, you get a gallery of nests…enjoy! (Click any image to view larger.) 1…. Read More
Jean Mackay
The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook
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