If You Want to Remember a Plant.

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Star magnolia, Magnolia stellata

If you really want to remember a plant, draw it!

I always say that if you really want to remember a plant, draw it. There’s nothing more effective to really make you look deeply at a plant than spending hours drawing it. I don’t know of anything better to imprint it on your brain.

Drawing makes you take the time to look.

When Georgia O’Keeffe was asked why she painted flowers she replied, “Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.” I don’t know how much time people spend looking at flowers these days but I do know that if you draw a flower you really have to take the time to look at it.

Drawing has improved my memory.

I spent 10 years drawing botanical illustrations for the weekly “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post. As a result of that work I now have a collection of 500+ botanical illustrations. When someone asks me if I have illustrated some plant, like the star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) above for example, I can always remember if I have or not. I may not remember in which month or year I did it, though I usually have a fairly good idea, but I can definitely remember.  This is due to the hours and hours I spend looking at a plant while illustrating it. Each pen and ink drawing I produced for the “Digging In” gardening column took anywhere from 10 to 20 hours to create, depending on its complexity.  That is a long time to spend looking at a plant.

You don’t have to be an artist to draw.

I don’t believe that you have to be a great artist or illustrator to enjoy drawing plants or to benefit from the hours you spend with them in this way. If you are a plant enthusiast who loves to garden or an amateur botanist who loves to study native plants and you want to remember what you see here’s my advice; the next time you are out in your yard or walking in the woods, bring along a sketchpad and pencil, find a plant that interests you, and start drawing. Don’t judge your results harshly but rather check later how well you can remember the plant you drew.

Aislinn Adams

A Botanical illustration and Fond Childhood Memories.

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Remembering Rhubarb.

As I prepared my rhubarb illustration (Rheum rhabarbarum) for the “Digging In” gardening column I thought back to my childhood home and the rhubarb patch in our garden. We had a lovely big garden -by garden I also mean “yard” , as it is known here in the U.S. Half was well tended and half semi-wild. The rhubarb patch was in a sunny spot near a rather neglected corner: a transition area between tended and wild, where an old, fallen-down green house was “home” to a long-suffering apricot tree. The tree is long dead but at that time it struggled on with little protection from the elements. The glass panes and many of the window frames had long ago fallen to the ground.

I was told to stay out of this part of the garden because of the broken glass barely hidden in the weeds. I obviously forgot the warning as I can remember falling and cutting my knee badly on a shard of glass. I was four years of age. Our family doctor came and, tweezers in hand, gently removed grit lodged deep in the cut.  I don’t remember crying or feeling pain but to this day I have a hard lump the size and shape of a small limpid shell on my knee. This incident, rather than putting me off, made that part of the garden- and rhubarb- more memorable and interesting.

Rhubarb Tarts.

I looked forward to rhubarb season each year. My mother would send me, or one of my siblings, out to pick enough stems for a couple of tarts. With six children to feed she baked every day and always several tarts at a time. I loved those rhubarb tarts. Every now and again we were given a precious rhubarb stem to chew raw. The favorite eating method was dipping it into a cup of sugar to sweeten the tartness.

Rhubarb- Fruit or Vegetable?

At first I thought of rhubarb as a curious, old-fashioned fruit. This no doubt was due to its popularity in my home as a tart filling and the copious amounts of sugar added to sweeten it. Later I learned that rhubarb is not a fruit but a vegetable.

An Interesting History.

Rhubarb has a long and interesting history. Its original use was as a medicine. As far back as 2,700 B.C.E  the Chinese used its roots as a powerful purgative. Marco Polo first brought the dried root to Europe where, by the 16th century, it was considered a valuable plant because of its use against venereal diseases. It wasn’t until 1778 that the French started eating the rhubarb stem in pies and tarts.

Rhubarb Time Again.

It is almost that time of year again and I’m wishing I had remembered to get a division of rhubarb from my friend. She has offered it to me many times. Rhubarb is best transplanted between late fall and early spring. The season is several weeks early this year in the Willamette valley so I will wait until the fall to get the division promised by my friend. In the meantime I’ll shall resort to begging or buying to satisfy my appetite for this curious, old “fruit”.

Aislinn Adams

Botanical Illustration of Kalmia latifolia, Mountain Laurel.

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Mountain Laurel

Botanical illustration of the beautiful Kalmia latifolia, mountain laurel.

One of the many botanical illustrations I drew in my first year for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post was Kalmia latifolia or mountain laurel. In the ten years of botanical illustration for the newspaper I drew this flowering native shrub twice.  I like this native plant so much that I chose my more recent illustration of it as the subject for one of my greeting cards in my botanical illustration series #1, created from my Washington Post work.

 

My first time seeing this lovely native shrub in flower.

I didn’t think about the other Kalmia latifolia illustration from that first year until recently. A friend, while admiring my botanical illustration greeting card series, told me that Kalmia latifolia was her favorite plant. Her remark made me think back to the first time I saw it flowering. It was on the side of the road in rural Carroll County, Maryland.

 

Mountain laurel is a favorite plant for many.

My friend is not alone in her choice of favorite plant. Michael A. Dirr in his “Manual of Woody Landscape Plants” describes Kalmia latifolia’s flower as the “most beautiful flower I know…. especially as the buds are opening”. The unique, “intricate beauty” (Dirr) of the mountain laurel flower buds remind me of ornamental icing on a traditional wedding cake; rows of tiny, perfectly formed dollops ending in minute peaks. The Kalmia latifolia flower buds- often dark pink on the outside opening up into pale pink flowers- are so perfectly formed they look almost unnatural.

Flowers with an ingenious strategy for pollination.

 

I took my time preparing those botanical illustrations.  Not only the buds, but the flowers too, are challenging to draw-and just as beautiful. The ten stamens of each flower curve into little pockets in each petal- spring-loaded if you will. When the pollen is ripe the slightest touch of a visiting insect will cause the bent stamen to spring forward showering pollen into the air. What an ingenious strategy to aid pollination. I often wonder what the insect “thinks” when the stamen filament is suddenly released slapping it in the eye or anther? Maybe after the surprise of the first time the insect grows to expect it and enjoy it even. I certainly enjoy the challenge of drawing such intricate botanical illustrations.

Aislinn Adams

This Week’s Botanical Illustration and The Irish Connection

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Hubei lily

Hubei lily, Lilium henryi
© Aislinn Adams

A botanical illustration with an Irish connection

The botanical illustrations I’ve created for the Washington Post’s “Digging In” column usually have absolutely no connection to Ireland. Gardening in the Washington D.C. area can be a very different experience to gardening in Ireland. The D.C. weather is full of extremes with the temperature sometimes rising or falling as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit in one day. Ireland’s weather is much milder, knowing no such extremes. Lots of exotic, bright, colorful shrubs and vines that thrive in the hot, moist conditions of a D.C. summer wouldn’t survive a good Irish summer, never mind a bad one that can be “summer” in name only.

Lilium henryi – Henry’s lily

Then one week Adrian Higgins, the gardening editor at the Washington Post, asked me to create a botanical illustration of Lilium henryi. I sat up straight and smiled – at last a plant with an Irish connection. Lilium henryi or Henry’s lily, a tall, orange, turkscap lily, is not native to Ireland but it most definitely has a strong connection to there. Augustine Henry, one of Ireland’s most famous plant collectors from the golden age of plant collecting in the late 1800’s, first described this beautiful plant.

Augustine Henry

Augustine Henry (1857-1930) grew up in Co. Tyrone, Ireland. He trained as a medical doctor but is best known for his plant collecting. After qualifying as a doctor he went to China to work for the Imperial Chinese Custom Service and in 1882 they sent him to the remote posting of Yichang in Hubei province to investigate plants used in Chinese medicine. (One of Lilium henryi’s common names is Hubei lily.) During his time in China he sent back thousands of plant specimens to Kew Gardens, England, and to Ireland. By 1896 25 new genera and 500 new species had been described from his specimens.

I felt proud that week creating a botanical illustration for a plant first described by one of Ireland’s great plant collectors and bearing his name in its species epithet.

To see my greeting card of Lilium henryi click here.

Aislinn Adams

Ten Years of Botanical Illustration

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Pruning Hydrangea – my first botanical illustration
for the “Digging In” gardening  column in the Washington Post.

Looking back on ten years of illustration –botanical, entomological and more!

As I complete ten years of botanical illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post I am more prone to remembering. Looking back on that collection of 500 plus illustrations, mostly botanical but sometimes entomological and more (after all you never quite know what you might find in your garden!) I am reminded of all the changes I myself have gone through in that time. After only a few weeks of illustrating the column from my studio in Washington D.C, my husband and I upped everything and moved to the Pacific North West. Then, within a year I became a parent for the first time giving birth to a beautiful, energetic and feisty baby girl. It has been quite a journey and all that time I never once missed a week in the gardening column.

Weekly practice of producing a botanical illustration.

Creating the botanical illustration became a welcome weekly practice for me, a ritual almost. I enjoyed the discipline of it all, most especially the quiet time I needed in order to create such detailed illustrations. For some folks it may seem like madness to use the technique of millions of tiny black dots to painstakingly record in minute botanical detail every flower stamen, leaf vein and tiny bud, but for me it was a kind of meditation.

Botanical illustration as meditation?

During that time every week I stopped, became very quiet, and immersed myself totally in the process. Sitting there bent over the drawing board I lost all sense of time. Often I would have to jump up with a start when I realized that I had to pick up my daughter from school with only five minutes to spare. Luckily we live a short walking distance from her school. I am surprised how much I miss my weekly ‘meditation’ already.

Finding an illustration style that suited black and white drawing for botanical illustration.

My illustration style changed over the years also. I started out using a simple cross hatching, seen above in my first illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column –Pruning Hydrangeas. That style began to change before the first year had ended, evolving into the more detailed and time consuming illustration style of stippling.  This change was necessitated by the traditional newspaper medium itself. I discovered that the stippling worked well for botanical illustration and reproduced well in black and white print. With the stippling I was able to show more detail. This was done to help readers recognize the plant more easily.

A greeting card business and a new decade.

Usually I don’t allow myself time to stop and reflect in this way.  As soon as one botanical illustration is finished I am on to the next one, hardly stopping to draw breath.  By choosing to write this illustration blog I am forced, and happily so, to stop regularly and go inside, to remember and reflect. I realize that this is not only the start of a great new adventure for me- launching a greeting card business and illustration blog- it is also the start of a new decade for us all. Who knows where the next ten years will bring us?

Aislinn Adams

My First Blog and Last Botanical Illustration

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My last botanical illustration for the Washington Post- Southern magnolia Alta

As I write this, my first blog, I also work on my last illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post newspaper. I have been producing a weekly botanical illustration for this column for ten years. My last illustration is of a southern magnolia Alta, Magnolia grandiflora “Alta”- an upright, columnar, tree. I’m glad to have it as the subject of my last illustration as I love its flowers and leaves. I want to do a good job, create something beautiful.  There are southern magnolias growing on my street here in Salem, Oregon but it is March and not the season for blooms.  I could draw the whole tree in its conical shape but I don’t think that would be as interesting as a close-up drawing of its large, dramatic white flowers and big, shiny, evergreen leaves.

Native plants of the Appalachian Piedmont Region.

In search of some references I “google” southern magnolia Alta and the first image I click on is from Mt Cuba Gardens, Delaware in the eastern United States. I take this as a good omen as I know the garden well.  I had been an intern there in the spring of 1997, my first year in the USA. Mt Cuba is well known for its extensive collection of plants native to the Appalachian Piedmont Region. I sought an internship there so that I could study these native plants. That spring at Mt Cuba I was surrounded by beauty. Every day I watched the garden come alive as a diverse array of spring ephemeral flowers woke up from their winter slumber. I felt very lucky to be able to work in such a bewitching place alongside thoughtful gardeners who were very passionate about what they did and shared their knowledge generously. As I pour over photos of Mt Cuba and wander down memory lane I picture myself in those pictures amongst the plants.  Even after so many years the garden is still familiar to me. I recognize where I worked and remember how I had carefully stepped between the creeping phlox and bluets in search of any weeds that might have escaped attention.

Spring blooms in the eastern United States.

My first spring in the eastern United States is a vivid and forceful memory.  I had no idea how dazzling a display nature could bring forth.  I was totally bowled over by the spectacle. I wonder if many of you, having grown up with this annual display, are now so accustomed to it that you take it for granted.  Being from Ireland and seeing it for the first time that spring was intoxicating.  I was charmed and delighted by every new plant discovery and marveled at what seemed like a never-ending parade of blooms- red buds, choke cherries, tulip poplars, mountain laurels, dogwoods- so many species, so much color. Later that same year I was delighted once again by the southern magnolias.

I’ve heard that our strongest sense for memory is smell but my memory of that first spring is an extremely powerful visual one. I find it difficult to pull myself away from the Mt Cuba pictures. It is an effort to come back to today and my last botanical illustration for the “Digging In column”. I have a deadline and time is slipping away. The southern magnolia Alta beckons.

Aislinn Adams