Nature Artists' Guild

          On Friday, March 19, at 9:30 a.m., Nature Artists’ Guild  Members will meet at the botany lab, located in the Administration & Research center, to sketch or paint from herbarium sheets.   At noon, members will have the exceptional opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the Morton Arboretum herbarium on a tour given by herbarium volunteer and guild member Liz Lizzio.
           “The Arboretum herbarium houses more than 165,000 dried plant specimens and 19,000 lichens, many from Illinois and Missouri. The herbarium’s strongest collections are its (1) active and nearly comprehensive contemporary collection of the flora of the 24-county Chicago region and (2) broad collection of woody plants of the northern Temperate zone, both cultivated and spontaneous.” redwood.mortonarb.org/lab_pages/hipp/herbarium.html
Please RSVP to Suzanne Wegener at swegener@mortonarb.org or 630-719-5642.

In late winter, the next best thing to going on a tropical vacation is?  A paint-out at Hausermann’s Orchids, of course.  Another perennial favorite paint-out spot, Hausermann’s is magical.  When you go inside, out of the snowy 10 degree Chicagoland weather, you are instantly transported to the tropics.    No sand, no pina coladas, but there are thousands of orchids, and they are in bloom!

Hausermann’s has a nice area set  aside in their huge greenhouse as a “showroom” with specimens of dozens of different types of orchids, which is where we set up to sketch or paint.  It’s worth coming even if you only have time to take some photographs, or as some do, walk around oohing and aahing at the amazing orchids (and ultimately buying one or two)!  One lucky participant will even receive a free orchid to take home with them.

It gets a little crowded if there are too many, so we’ll try to limit the group to about 15.   Please contact Denise if you think you’d like to come.  We’ll be meeting on Friday, 02/05/10 from 9:30 to 12:30, and Suzanne  will meet you there.  Hausermann’s is located at 2N134 Addison Road, Villa Park, IL (see www.orchidsbyhausermann.com for directions).   Bring a chair, your art supplies, and maybe an MP3 with some Don Ho (who?) or Ziggy Marley (who???) music, and enjoy!

It’s Not Too Late to Join a Fun Paint-Out Tomorrow!

Our first paint-out of the year is tomorrow, and it’s at a place that many of us know and love! We will be meeting at the Jurica Nature Museum at Benedictine University tomorrow, January 14, from 9:30 to 12:30 (or later if you wish). If you haven’t been there before, you’re in for a treat!

This museum is filled with mounts and skeletons of creatures ranging from hedgehogs to lions . They are displayed in a few large rooms, and there are few or no spectators, so you’ll have room to spread out and get comfortable. Unfortunately for them, the animals stay extremely still, but that makes it much easier for us to get some good sketches, drawings or paintings! I stayed a while after everyone left last year, and though it was a tiny bit spooky in a “Night at the Museum” sort of way, I was able to do a sketch of a skunk that would have otherwise never been possible!

Please let LaVerne Bohlin know  if you plan on coming, as she will be meeting members there. Don’t stress about getting there right at 9:30 – it’s a casual gathering and we’d love to have you any time you can make it . If you have the time, maybe you could also go with some other NAG members to lunch afterwards, or stay later at the museum for some extra time with the animals (if you dare)!

Denise Fisk, Program Chair