On your next visit to The Morton Arboretum, consider taking a break from your hiking, biking, walking, running, drawing, painting, photographing or just appreciating the scenery, to stop in for a visit at the Sterling Morton Library.
Featured in the library through June 4, 2011 is an exhibit of artwork by The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI), Art in the Service of Science. GNSI was founded in 1968 at the Smithsonian Institution, and a number of Nature Artists’ Guild members, as well as instructors in the Morton Arboretum’s Botanical Art & Illustration Certificate program are also members of GNSI.
Please click here for more information about the exhibit from the Arboretum, or here for the Sterling Morton Library blog. You can visit the GNSI website at www.gnsi.org.
The library is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.
A quick glimpse of some of the artwork being dropped off last evening for the Spring Exhibit of The Nature Artists’ Guild was enough to convince us that the exhibit, which opens this Friday evening for artists, their families, and Morton Arboretum members, and remains open to the public this Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5, will be another fine example of the creativity, quality and variety we’ve come to appreciate from our members.
Along with amazingly detailed and delicate botanicals in watercolor and colored pencil, there were soft pastel landscapes, striking acrylics and oils, and as always, birds and other creatures represented in a variety of media. Along with many of your favorite returning artists, we’re also welcoming a number of first-time exhibitors this year, who’ll be adding their own styles to the exhibit!
Please feel free to invite your friends, family and neighbors – why not make a day of it? Even if you’re not exhibiting, you’ll get new ideas and inspiration, not only from the exhibit, but from the Arboretum grounds. Check Bloom ‘N Color here for the Arboretum’s latest weekly color report!
Just for fun, let’s see what really goes on with members of the Nature Artists’ Guild a week before an exhibit. Please check one of the three choices below and click on the vote button (don’t worry, we don’t know who you are)! No matter where you fit on the spectrum, don’t forget that the drop-off evening is less than a week away (next Wednesday, April 6, 2011)!
Our fellow Nature Artist Guild member Diana Sunyog has arranged for Guild members to have a private tour of the Nettie McKinnon Gallery in LaGrange Park next Friday, April 1st from 11 am until about 1 pm.
This gallery is a hidden gem featuring over 120 works of art by many major artists, including Hudson River School painters John Frederick and George Aldrich and major American Impressionist painters Edward Henry Potthast, John Henry Twatchman and John Singer Sargent.
The history of the museum is fascinating, with early works of art being bought from profits of the sale of magazines by 7th and 8th graders in the late 1920’s, all under the direction of principal Nettie J. McKinnon. Nettie’s determination to make art available to students as an everyday part of their lives resulted in this wonderful collection. Most of the artists represented are also in leading museum collections across the country. Please visit www.saltcreekart.org/for more about the museum’s history and collection.
Family members are welcome, and Diana mentions that there are a number of nice restaurants in the area from which we can choose for our post-tour refreshment (no PB &J sandwiches for this field trip)! Please contact Ku-mie Kim (her e-mail address is in your Yearbook) if you’d like to come, as the museum would like an accurate count.
The address of the gallery is – Nettie McKinnon Gallery, 333 North Park Road, Entrance 4, La Grange Park, IL 60526 , Phone – (708) 482-2400 (ext. 2002).
Are you tired of hearing that your note cards are so lovely that people won’t use them? Are people telling you that they frame them instead? Are people buying your note cards but not your artwork? If you answered yes, head out to our Workshop on Saturday, March 26, 9:30 to 2:00 at Thornhill.
One of the available projects will be painting/reviving stand up picture frames that will display your art- in note card size! We will also learn to create felt flowers with Sharon Malec, paint and decorate papier mache eggs and other fun things.
Bring along your printed note card, acrylic paints, brushes, water container and lunch. We will have frames prepped to paint, but if you have one at home that you feel is ready to recycle, bring it along! Frames must be acrylic paint receptive, so no metal, please. See you there!
Who doesn’t have Spring Fever? Although the first day of Spring isn’t until the twentieth of March, members of the Nature Artists’ Guild can begin celebrating its arrival a few days early!
Photo credit Chicago Botanic Garden
On Friday, March 18, 2011, from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, we will be visiting the world-famous Chicago Botanic Garden for a spring paint-out. The Garden’s 24 display gardens and four natural areas will just be coming back to life with tulips and crocuses and literally hundreds of thousands of daffodils and jonquils! As the Garden’s website notes, “No season is more longed for, or dreamed about, than spring, perhaps because it rubs shoulders with the harshest months of the year. This spring, discover daily miracles and celebrate the plant world at the Garden in all its optimism, color, and beauty.”
All of us in the Chicago-land area also know that March weather can be very unpredictable! Luckily for our paint-out participants, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s three greenhouses boast semitropical, tropical and desert environments.
Photo credit Chicago Botanic Garden
You won’t be feeling any chill while indoors sketching the Garden’s display of “beautiful and fragrant flowering plants, rare plants, edible plants, utilitarian plants, seasonal plants, and houseplants from around the world”, all kept at a plant and people-pleasing 75 to 85 degrees! Take that March winds!
Please let Ku-mie Kim know if plan to attend (her contact information is in the Yearbook). There may be a possibility of arranging some car-pooling for those interested. Please visit the Chicago Botanic Garden website, for directions as well as some late-winter sustenance!
Please click on the Featured Artist tab above to read more about Kathleen and to see more of her artwork.
Don’t’ miss the Spring Exhibit of the Nature Artists’ Guild at The Morton Arboretum on April 9th and 10th, where you will see much more of Kathleen’s artwork as well as that of about fifty other members of the Nature Artists’ Guild!
The Canterbury Shoppe’s spring exhibit of the Nature Artists’ Guild is upand looking great! Everything spring-related, from bulbs to birds are beautifully represented by our group of talented artists. Please take a few minutes one afternoon to stop by and enjoy the exhibit, at 43 E. Jefferson, Naperville, IL 60540. The phone number is 630-717-5005, and the shop is open on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 to 6, Thursday from 10 to 8, and Sunday from 11 to 3.
In addition to the original artwork and fine-art prints, there are cards, jewelry and decorative items for sale, all created by Nature Artists’ Guild members! Be prepared to possibly make a day of it, though. When you leave the Canterbury Shoppe, the scents of the area restaurants and the sight of all the other unique shops in downtown Naperville are hard to resist!
Although we’ve all seen and admired her beautiful creations, soon we’ll also have the opportunity to see just how she does it! We’re talking about, of course, Sharon Malec, one of the Nature Artists’ Guild’s own talented fiber artists. At our formal meeting on Thursday, March 3, 2011, from 7 to 9 pm, Sharon will give us some background on various types of fiber art, including quilting and wool needle felting, bring some of her work, and even conduct a demonstration of some of her techniques!
Sharon’s interest in nature helped to develop her distinctive style of art, and she is now most recognized for her unique and realistic depictions of nature and wildlife in fiber. Her talents have led Sharon to serve on the faculty at national quilt shows, be published in Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, and have quilts in the permanent collections of the Museum of the American Quilt’s Society in KY, the Lincoln Memorial library in CA, and the Norris Gallery in IL.
An excellent instructor, Sharon also shares her knowledge and experience in three books, 64 patterns, and an instructional video. Sharon’s website is www.malec-designs.com.
Nature Artists' Guild 