Call for Artwork – 2012 Nature Artists’ Guild Calendar

June 2011 Calendar Page. Artwork by Carol Carls

Members of the Nature Artists’ Guild are invited to submit artwork for the 2012 Nature Artists’ Guild Calendar.

The 2011 Calendar was a success – Now it’s time to gear up for 2012. Calendar sales support the programs and activities of the Guild and are a great way to showcase your work. They also make great gifts!

Click here to download detailed instructions and specifications.

The deadline for submissions is September 17, 2011. If you have questions, please contact Mary Ingels. If you’d like to volunteer to help, contact Sylvia Root Tester (phone numbers and email addresses can be found in the Yearbook).

Gardener’s Art Festival Volunteers Needed on June 25th

The Nature Artists’ Guild has been invited to participate in the annual Gardener’s Art Festival being held on Saturday, June 25, 2011 from 10 am until 4 pm at The Growing Place in Naperville.  Please click here to find out all the details about this popular festival! 

Photo credit The Growing Place

We are looking for artists to volunteer to participate for a 2-hour shift of painting, drawing or sketching during the event.  What a great opportunity to show off your work while enjoying the beautiful surroundings!

   The  Growing Place would love to have four artists for each shift, so please don’t hesitate to sign up if you can – we need your contribution to help make this a success!  Contact Jill Adzia to sign up (you can find her contact information in your Yearbook).

Eggs-cellent job!

The Nature Artists’ Guild liason to The Morton Arboretum, Suzanne Wegener thanked everyone at our meeting last night on behalf of the Arboretum for doing such a great job of painting eggs for their upcoming Cirque Du Soleil promotion.  Suzanne started out with 100 plain tan eggs, and as of last evening, only two were not yet decorated!

As artist Priscilla Humay pointed out after her awesome presentation last evening (thank you, Priscilla!), the Nature Artists’ Guild really does have one of the best settings in the Chicagoland area for an artists’ group.  The Morton Arboretum provides us with inspiring subject matter, a wonderful and helpful staff, quality instruction and promotion, and facilities for our workshops, shows and meetings that are not only modern and comfortable, but historic and absolutely beautiful! 

Sometimes it takes someone outside of the group to notice what we may take for granted.  So, thank you Morton Arboretum for everything you do for our group, and any time you need help in painting a hundred or so eggs, we’ll be glad to do it!

EGG-stravaganza this Thursday!

You are invited to stop by this Thursday evening before our formal Nature Artists’ Guild meeting to paint an egg or two for Cirque du Soleil.  There will be paints available in Thornhill, Room C from 5-7 pm.

 The eggs will be used for a eggs-ceptional  promotional event at the Morton ArboretumPlease join us in this wonderful opportunity (click here for more information) to get publicity for our group while also helping the Arboretum!

Please contact Suzanne with any questions.

Beauty of the Earth Exhibit at the Burning Bush Gallery

Even if you didn’t get a chance to participate in this lovely exhibit, there is still time to visit the gallery and view the artwork of some of your fellow Nature Artists’ Guild members.  The gallery is located at 224 North Main Street in Wheaton, and hours are listed on the flyer below. 

Artwork Copyright Paulette McDermott

Don’t be Shy!

Even if you’ve never even considered publishing your artwork before, you can still experience the thrill of seeing your artwork in print!   The Nature Artists’ Guild’s publication for members, “The Quarterly” is a great place for getting your feet wet, and there’s still time to have your artwork included in the Summer edition.

We all love to see what our fellow members have been working on, and your piece doesn’t even have to be a completed painting or drawing – sketchbook pages are just as welcome for inclusion, and frequently even more fascinating than finished pieces!

All you need to do is to send a JPEG file to Evelyn Grala (her contact information can be found in your Yearbook).   If you don’t have a professional scan or a home printer/scanner, that’s not a problem.  Any office supply chain should be able to scan your artwork (usually up to 11 x 17 inches) for just a few dollars (just make sure the artwork is not under glass).  They’ll even e-mail the file to Evelyn for you for another small fee!  She’ll be able to crop off or clean up the edges of the scan if needed, and the next thing you know, you’re published!  (If there are too many to include, Evelyn will save your file for a later edition.)

The Nature Artists’ Guild is Joining The Circus!

But thankfully, we won’t be on the high wire!  The Morton Arboretum’s Nature Arts Education Manager and our Nature Artists’ Guild liason, Suzanne Wegener, has asked us to help with a fun new adventure –

Have you heard of Cirque Du Soleil? They have a new performance scheduled in Chicago called OVO (egg). In conjunction with this event The Morton Arboretum will host an egg hunt for families and we have been asked to help out by painting eggs for the event. If you can help out we would greatly appreciate it! Paper eggs can be picked up in the Thornhill offices. Paint them, decoupage them, splatter them, but sign them with your name, they are artist created! I will have examples in the registrar’s office for you to see.  We will need them back by June 1st. Check out their website here to see a preview of the performance.

 I thank you for your help with this event. By participating we increase publicity for our events by raising awareness of our group and the education program at the Morton Arboretum.

 If you have any questions please contact me at swegener@mortonarb.org or 630 719-5642.

Guild of Natural Science Illustrators Exhibit at Sterling Morton Library

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.

Are You Ready for the Spring Exhibit?

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)!