Marie Dauenheimer's Art and Anatomy Blog: Illustrators Club "Sketch Day" at US Botanic Gardens

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Illustrators Club "Sketch Day" at US Botanic Gardens

On Sunday January 9, 2011 ten members and friends of the Illustrators Club (IC) met at the US Botanic Gardens to draw. Our group included young artists such as 9 year old Sienna Butters, high school student Samatha Bryant, VCU student Ben Bryant to more seasoned artists and members of the IC, including past president Lucinda Levine. The botanic gardens is a perfect place to sketch with lots of comfortable, quite places to draw and get lost in the color and texture of the plants.

After drawing for two hours the group met for lunch at the National Gallery of Art. We enjoyed camaraderie and best of all sharing our drawings. The works were amazing and varied in media from Sienna and Eric Butters who used watercolor pencils and finger painting techniques to create their brilliant paintings, to Lucinda Levine who used pen and ink and Meredith Nelson who drew with markers. Web Bryant used graphite and charcoal to create a lush textural drawing, architect Farshad Ferdowsi impressed us with his energetic graphite sketches. Most high tech was our "Sketch Day" organizer Sayeh Benham who used an iPad to paint a red amaryllis. I used colored pencils on toned paper.

Our next "Sketch Day" is scheduled for Sunday February 13, 2011 at 11:00AM at the National Museum of Natural History. Please join us for an afternoon of sketching (we will meet at the big elephant in the main lobby).