Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant Illustration Project- Getting started!
This is the second blog in a series I’m writing about a large native plant illustration commission I received from the Friends of Silver Falls State Park (FOSF). To read the first blog click here.
Detail of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older sketchbook.
Tús maith, leath na hoibre, A good start is half the work!
Irish Proverb
When I first received this commission I was very excited: so many wonderful species and so much potential for good work, but my head began to spin when I thought about the scale of the job ahead of me (thirty native plant species). I realized immediately that the project would involve many comprehensive studies of the different growing stages of each plant. I knew too that if I wanted to do a good job I needed a good plan. But by the time the project finally started it was June and Oregon was beginning to experience its worst drought on record. I could feel the panic rising as I watched many of the native species on the list wither before my eyes. To calm my nerves I focused on the art materials I’d need, starting with the right sketchbook. I had already begun to make my own for other projects and knew I would do the same for this one but I wasn’t sure what page dimensions to use.
Finding the right sketchbook!
Study of Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, from my older homemade sketchbook.
Feeling the panic nipping at my heels I began drawing Scouler’s corydalis, Corydalis scouleri, (in bloom in my own garden at the time). I used a homemade sketchbook I already had – made from Fabriano Artistico Extra White Watercolor Paper. I realized very quickly, however, that the pages were too small. I love the brightness and versatility of this paper, which I use for graphite as well as watercolor studies, but I needed bigger pages.
Making my own sketchbooks for the project.
Luckily my local art store had a sale in Fabriano Artistico Extra White (140 lb, 300 gsm) at the time. I bought 22×30 inch (559 x 762 mm) sheets and divided each one into four x 11×15 inch (279 x 381 mm) pages. I then had them spiral bound into sketchbooks of 12 pages at my local printer. I thought, rather than having one large sketchbook, dividing the pages up like this would make it easier to manage- and safer. Damage or loss of my sketchbook would be a real setback- especially if all my plant studies were in one. By splitting up the pages this way the sketchbook is lighter too and more manageable. I can study about 10 plants per sketchbook and when full move onto the next.
My first FOSF sketchbook of 12, spiral bound pages. The cover (printed on my Epson printer) shows a pen and ink illustration of Western tiger lily, Lilium columbium, created previously. It is one of the native plants on my project list (shown below).
Friends of Silver Falls Native Plant list included it in the sketchbook.
The finished botanical illustrations.
The finished botanical illustrations will be reproduced on 11×16 inch (279 x 406 mm) sheets (similar to an herbarium specimen sheet) so my sketchbook page dimensions, at 11×15 inches (279 x 381 mm), help me visualize how much plant information can fit onto that size sheet. I’ve already begun using my first sketchbook and it’s working well so far. The only change I will make to the second and third will be to insert lighter tracing paper sheets between the watercolor pages so that I can protect them better. I’ve made a tús maith (good start) I think. I will let you know how the “other half” of the project goes in due course.
Aislinn Adams
Blog #2 Friends of Silver Falls State Park Native Plant Illustration Project.
Botanical illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring.
© 2011 Aislinn Adams
Fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum
Botanical Illustrations become rubber stamps for Spring.
I’m delighted to announce that twelve of my black and white botanical illustrations are now available as rubber stamps. I’ve just signed my first license contract with the rubber stamp company Impression Obsession.
Spring is finally in the air and the inspiration for this rubber stamp collection. There are lots of blossoms to choose from- Florida dogwood, Chinese plum, peach blossom, fawn lily, passion flower, rhododendron, lily of the valley, daffodil and crab apple. I am particularly happy to see the American native plant in the selection- fawn lily, Erythronium oregonum – a favorite from the Pacific northwest where I live.
Check out the complete collection of my new botanical illustration rubber stamps at this link.
Aislinn Adams
The Art of Communication – 100 Artist Show
The Art of Communication – 100 Artist Show
February 1-March 3rd
This pen and ink illustration was created for The Art of Communication – 100 Artist Show at the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery in Salem, Oregon. I decided to use my pen and ink drawing style for this black and white illustration. It seemed in keeping with the topic. I also added a little Caran d’Ache pencil for color.
First Day of Issue Stamps.
Mary Lou Zeek was inspired to create the show when she found a collection of first day of issue stamped envelopes at an estate sale. She invited 100 artists to participate in the project and paired us with each other. We were then sent a stamped envelope, addressed to our partner artist, containing a sheet of blank writing paper and asked to write a letter on any topic we liked.
While reflecting on the title of this project I thought my letter would be some kind of meditation on the nature of communication. However, when I actually received the package I was so moved by the first day of issue stamps on the envelope that I wrote about preserving the past instead- a subject I’m passionate about.
An inspiring letter.
I received a wonderfully moving letter in response to mine from my partner artist, Leslie Peterson. A couple of lines recounting a story from her family’s past really struck me and sent me back to reflecting on the nature of communication once again. In our letters we both lamented the often “casual disregard” for the past here in the U.S. and Leslie talked about preserving “memory”. She wrote about her grandfather, an immigrant from Austria who never learned English, while his children, born and reared in the U.S., never learned German. This was not unusual for the time. However, I keep wondering how Leslie’s grandfather communicated with his children? How did he pass down his family’s stories, his history, and what was lost?
An authentic voice.
I too am an immigrant. I come from Ireland originally. Thankfully times have changed and I don’t have to worry about assimilating in a way that would force me to deny my past or silence my voice. So, in the end I created a piece that simply expresses my need to have my own voice – to communicate honestly and authentically who I am- no bells and whistles or special effects. And I communicate as an illustrator because that is what I am.
The Art of Communication- 100 Artist Show starts next week at the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery. If you would like to learn more about the exhibition and see all the artists’ work just click on this link and scroll to the bottom of the page to see all the artists’ work.
Aislinn Adams
January 12, 2012.
Inspiring Women Through Art.
© Aislinn Adams When Sleeping Women Awake
Every accident has a silver lining.
Many years ago I fell while rock climbing at my local crag in Dublin, Ireland. I broke my ankle and spent nine weeks in a large, heavy cast, from upper calf to toe tips. I broke the talus bone- the second rarest bone in the body to break- and difficult to heal. I was warned that on no account should I put any weight on the leg. The orthopedic surgeon, well known for his poor bedside manner, left me in no doubt that if the bone didn’t heal I would have a permanent limp. I hopped out of his surgery on my new crutches stifling a sob and vowing to do everything possible to help my ankle heel.
A forced vacation.
At the time I was a free-lance graphic designer living in a second floor apartment with no elevator. This was in the ‘old days’ before email and websites. I had no option but to take a forced vacation. I rested my broken ankle, elevating it as much as possible until the swelling eased. I had been free-lancing for a few years at that stage and had never really taken any vacation: as a self-employed person if I didn’t work I didn’t get paid. I worried a little about the loss of income but I had some money set aside and I knew that no amount of money could compensate for a permanent limp.
“When sleeping women awake, mountains will move”.
One day during my ‘convalescence’ I visited some female friends. Several of them were women religious from a prominent Catholic religious order in Ireland. I enjoyed the spirited, intelligent conversation darting back and forth across the table as we drank tea. They were highly competent women, leaders in their communities. We discussed an article one of them had read. She shared this quote from the article, “When sleeping women awake, mountains will move”. We all responded enthusiastically to the inspirational quotation. The irony of the situation was not lost on me as I sat there with my climbing injury, unable to get near a mountain.
A dream-like image came to mind.
One of my friends turned to me saying I should create an illustration to go with the quote. Usually my imagination doesn’t work that way. I don’t just come up with an image to order. I have to let the idea or feeling sink in. Not this time. Almost instantly a dream-like image came to mind. When I went home that evening I started working on it. I chose a pen and ink cross-hatching style to create the desired affect. I used my finest rapidograph, handling it carefully, its ridiculously narrow-gauge hollow ‘nib’ only letting the ink flow when held lightly and delicately above the paper. The work took me hours and hours. I didn’t care. I was totally engrossed. With time the mountain range of women moved from my imagination onto paper and to this day that illustration strikes a chord with so many women. What a gift that fall turned out to be.
Eventually my ankle healed and, after a lot of physical therapy, I went back to climbing. I had no limp and a new portfolio of illustrations.
Aislinn Adams
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, the First Cultivated Plant.
The story of the common fig, Ficus carica, needs more than one blog.
I started writing about the common fig in my last blog- The common fig, Ficus carica, Fruit, Flower or Carnivore? As I uncovered its story I realized that it would take more than one blog to share its long and complex history. I illustrated the common fig, Ficus carica, several times for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post. This week I post a botanical illustration of Ficus carica “Negronne” to illustrate this entry. This natural dwarf variety can be grown in containers and is particularly suited to the Pacific North West, where I live.
The common fig, Ficus carica, and the first farmers.
It seems everything I read currently brings me back to the first farmers. Recently while reading about the Burren region in the west of Ireland I learned how the first farmers impacted that environment, using only a simple axe as their main tool. Then, while researching the common fig, Ficus carica, for this blog, I discovered that it was probably the first plant cultivated by humans: predating the Neolithic farmers’ “eight founder crops” -einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, lentils, chickpeas, barley, flax, bitter vetch, and peas, Wikipedia– by many centuries.
Neolithic Farmers.
The Neolithic period (starting c. 9500 BCE) marks the beginning of farming and the common fig comes from the region where farming began, the Middle East. Common fig subfossils found in the Neolithic village of Gilgal 1, 13 Kilometers north of Jericho (present day West Bank,) date from 9400-9200 BCE.
Parthenocarpic figs and human selection.
This first fig crop was a parthenocarpic type i.e. the fruit is produced without pollination (see my last blog for more on this subject.) This means that these fig plants were “cultivars” i.e. plants selected and propagated from cuttings by humans rather than grown from seed. We have been growing and eating figs, as well as introducing them to different parts of the world, for over 12,000 years. Parthenocarpic varieties helped this spread because they don’t need a local insect to pollinate the plants in order to produce fruit.
How much do I know about the food I eat?
Reading about the common fig makes me realize how little I know about the food I eat. I’m not talking about which farm my food comes from, whether it is organic or conventional, what variety it is, or how far it has traveled to reach the grocery shop’s shelf. Rather, I am talking about food’s cultural history. I wonder what it means that we have been eating figs since the end of the last ice age? What a long human-plant relationship this is. Have we co-evolved together?
Plant or human selection?
In my last blog I also wrote about the high nutritional value of figs, especially in relation to our human needs. Is this just a happy coincidence? Science may explain the selection and success of figs as a food crop through a mixture of human interference and natural selection but I wonder if those first farmers choose the fig knowing how nutritional it was to eat or just because it tasted good? Or, could it be, as Michael Pollan suggests in his book The Botany of Desire, that the common fig chose us to guarantee its survival?
Agriculture- from Neolithic times to today.
Agriculture has come a long way since Neolithic times. The highly intensive form that we now practice, with its heavy dependence on chemicals, limited selection of crops grown in vast monocultures and enormous use of fossil fuels and other natural resources to produce the crops, is a far cry from those early days. I imagine those first farmers, mostly women undoubtedly, scratching their heads in amazement. Learning about the common fig’s story raises my awareness of our dependence on nature to sustain us: the long and critical relationship we humans have with the plant kingdom- the source of most of our food- and the role this small fruit has played.
Aislinn Adams
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, Fruit, Flower or Carnivore?
The Common Fig, Ficus carica, unwelcome bounty!
I originally started writing about the common fig, Ficus carica, because of my annual battle with it. Our neighbor’s fig tree leans over the fence onto our yard and rains its bounty of figs onto our vegetable garden every year. Unfortunately, neither I nor my husband or daughter eat figs. I find them too sweet, preferring fruit with a more tangy taste. Every year I spend hours cleaning up semi-rotten figs after they have smashed their way through our tomato plants before embedding themselves, like small, sticky bombs, into the mulched paths. Then the clouds of fruit flies follow. It is not one of my favorite gardening moments in the year.
Coming to terms with the common fig.
Even though I don’t like to eat figs I do feel guilty that I am allowing this food source to go to waste. I ask friends and neighbors to come and pick but to date no one has taken me up on the offer. In an effort to come to terms with this dilemma I started researching the common fig. Maybe knowing more about the plant would help me change my attitude and even motivate me to eat some of them or make more of an effort to pass them on to others at least.
I have illustrated the common fig several times for the Digging In gardening column of the Washington Post. Both times I used my neighbor’s tree for reference. I love drawing botanical illustrations, regardless of the subject, especially when I can use a live specimen, and there is no shortage of live specimens of fig in my garden!! I feel I owe this tree something seeing as it has helped me out in the past.
The common fig, a fascinating story.
Once again I start researching a plant and find myself drawn into a long and intriguing story that brings me all the way back to Neolithic times and the first farmers. By coincidence I am reading a book at the moment that has spurred on my research- The Fruit Hunters, A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. This book by Adam Leith Gollner is a great read and even if you have only the slimmest interest in plants you will find it full of great stories to edify and entertain.
Too good a story for just one blog entry.
The story of the common fig, Ficus carica, is a complex and multi-faceted one that merits a book or indeed a series of books. There are two aspects of the fig’s story that have delighted me and sent my imagination into over-drive.
1. The reproductive cycle of the fig and its pollination strategies.
2. The first farmers (Neolithic) who domesticated the fig.
For this reason I’m writing two blogs on the subject starting with the reproductive cycle of the fig and its pollination story.
A fruit that is not a fruit!
I should write ‘false fruit’ or ‘multiple fruit’ when referring to the fig because what we eat is in fact the flower or inflorescence (an arrangement of multiple flowers.) The fig ‘fruit’ is a flower turned inside out: its juicy, red interior made up of lots of individual flowers and seeds growing together. The pollinator, a small female fig wasp that depends totally on the fig for its life cycle, must enter through a small opening in the fig, loosing her antennae and wings en route, to lay her eggs on the female fig flowers.
Fig tree pollination-well, sometimes?
Before all you fig lovers start spitting out your figs let me reassure you. Figs have several ways of producing fruits and most of the varieties in our gardens (Adriatic, Black Mission, Brown Turkey, Brunswick, and Celeste) are self-fertilized i.e. parthenocarpically. This means that they do not need pollination to produce their fruit.
Carnivorous figs?
The fig varieties that are pollinated by female wasps (e.g. Calimyrna, Marabout, and Zidi) consume the wasp after she has done her job laying her eggs and pollinating the flowers (Does this make the fig a carnivore?) When these eggs mature into female and male wasps the males (who are wingless) mate with the females and chew a tunnel through the fruit creating an opening through which the female wasps can escape. This suggests to me that the wasps may have left the fruit to find new fruits to pollinate before the fig is eaten but one account I read said that we eat the wasp’s eggs with the fruit- extra protein for us all?
Great nutrition- keep eating your figs.
I hope my account of the coevolution of the fig and fig wasp and their symbiotic relationship doesn’t put all you fig lovers off your figs, but rather fills you with the wonder and awe that nature continues to inspire in me? Who needs science fiction when we have nature all around us. I do eat dried figs and now that I’ve learned what a nutritious food it is, I plan to eat more. According to Wikipedia, figs are one of the highest plant sources of calcium and fiber and USDA research on the Mission variety found that dried figs are richest in fiber, copper, manganese, magnesium, potassium, calcium and vitamin K, relative to human needs. They also contain many antioxidants. So keep eating your figs and maybe I’ll figure out a way to dry some of my neighbor’s next year.
Aislinn Adams
Squash, Cucurbita pepo, a Central American fruit that inspires generousity.
© Aislinn Adams 2008 Squash, Cucurbita pepo.
Celebrating the arrival of squash.
Squash season is here so this week I’m posting a botanical illustration to celebrate its arrival. When I illustrated this black and white illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post I didn’t have time to research its story. Writing blogs about my botanical illustrations allows me time to research my subject in more depth- a very enjoyable endeavor.
Sorting out the different kinds of squash can take a while. They are loosely divided into two groups – summer or winter squash. Squash, also called marrow or pumpkin, usually refers to four species of the genus Cucurbita– C. maxima, C. mixta, C. moschata and C. pepo. The summer squash varieties have thinner skins and can be eaten raw whereas the winter squash usually have tougher skins and need to be cooked. The botanical illustration above, Cucurbita pepo, is a summer squash and includes such varieties as standard field pumpkins, small pie pumpkins, acorn squash, vegetable spaghetti, pattypan, summer crookneck and zucchini (also known as courgette).
There’s no waste on a squash!
One can eat nearly all parts of the plant. Apart from the fruit, squash seeds can be eaten directly, ground into a paste, or pressed for vegetable oil. The shoots, leaves and tendrils can be eaten as greens. The blossoms too are an important part of Native American cooking and are also used in other parts of the world.
A fascinating journey!
Little did I realize when I began to research squash that it would lead me on such a journey. So much so that I am now hard put to keep this blog entry short. There is enough material in what I’ve learned for a month of blog posts but I don’t have a month of squash illustrations. I will have to save some of the squash’s story for later blog posts and new botanical illustrations.
Central American caves, the Wampanoeg people and a Patuxet named Squanto.
The more I read about squash, the deeper the story goes. I travel from caves in central America, where archaeologists found 8000-10,000 year-old squash seed (Cucurbita pepo), to the Wampanoag tribe of New England and a Patuxet named Squanto (or Tisquantum) who, despite being captured and sold as a slave to the Spanish and later regaining his freedom and finding his way back to his homeland, helped Plymouth colonists survive those first harsh winters in New England by teaching them how to cultivate corn, squash and beans.
The “Three Sisters”- a clever combination.
The “Three Sisters”- corn, squash and beans- were the main indigenous plants used for agriculture in the Americas. The corn provides a climbing structure for the beans and shade for the squash, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil, and the squash spreads across the ground providing cover from weeds while keeping the soil moist.
Origin of the name squash.
The word squash comes from the Native American word askutasquash: a Narrangansett word meaning ‘a green thing eaten raw’. Narragansett, an Algonquin language, is related to the Massachusett and Wampanoeg languages.
The important role of Wampanoeg women as farmers.
Squash was also a staple of the Wampanoeg diet. Wampanoeg women were responsible for farming and fruit and nut gathering. This meant they provided up to 75% of all the food needed in Wampanoeg societies (Wikipedia [4] ). The importance of their role as food providers is reflected in the status they enjoyed in their communities: land was passed down through women i.e. matrilineally, and they often held leadership positions. As it was the women who grew the food they, along with Squanto, must have been responsible for teaching the Plymouth colonists how to grow the “Three Sisters” during those first few critical years.
The next time you pick up a squash, pause a moment to consider it’s long and bountiful history: the generosity of the Wampanoeg people who shared this food willingly, and nature’s generosity in providing us with such a nourishing food for over 10,000 years.
Aislinn Adams
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