Art in the Garden: Botanical Illustration

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” – Rachel Carson

Join us in the garden and greenhouse to hone your observational skills and learn to work with colored pencils to merge both science and art through the dicipline of botanical illustration. In this session, participants will explore how the drawing of a flower can elicit an emotional response while also documenting and educating for conservation purposes the form, function, and biodiversity in the plants portrayed. Together, we’ll take to the garden, finding the plant that most calls to us, contemplating it’s beauty and settling into the art of noticing.

Your Facilitator: Susan Kricorian

Since I was a young girl growing up in Watertown, MA, drawing, painting in response to my surroundings have always been magical acts that brought me great satisfaction.Art has been a private world where my interests in parallels that exist within the natural world and human nature, gestural brushwork, bright colors, and patterns continue to be important elements in my work.I moved to NYC in 1986 and began teaching art for the DOE in 1988. In 2021 I retired from teaching full-time.Recently, Iʼve been inspired by old family photographs taken by my father, works by beloved artists, construction in my neighborhood, world events, collective experiences during these tumultuous times. I love studying the subjectsʼ expressions, gestures and exploring their underling temperaments, honest evocations in relationships and bringing them to life with paint. Mystery, curiosity and beauty remain constant forces behind my creative energy.

Grounded in the garden, join us to critically and creatively engage in a diversity of artmaking techniques that open us up to deeper dialogue on place, our relationships to our lived environments, ecological concerns, and contemporary culture. Learn meditative and mindful drawing, printmaking and sculptural techniques, scientific observation with plant portraiture, nature-inspired intuitive artmaking and mixed media exploration, and other various practices from botanical and ecologically-focused contemporary artists to create works of art to nurture your relationship to the garden.

Immerse yourself in the learning garden, greenhouse, and across Riverbank State Park’s green roof overlooking the Hudson River to create artwork that is rooted in place and in partnership with plants.

Workshops are rain or shine.

When inside the greenhouse and kitchen we will open our double-doors and windows to vent the space and encourage masking and social distancing when in more closed-in spaces.

Accessibility: Our kitchen/classroom space is wheelchair accessible. With prior planning, we can add a few small mats onto the pebbled ground of greenhouse to make a small wheel-chair accessible path. Our learning garden has grass paths, and the entrance is through a gate with a small, raised entrance. Our tables can be lowered/raised, and we have several backless benches or stools. Our kitchen is in regular use, and while we try to cook without peanuts, much of our cookware is shared and we cannot guarantee a nut-free environment. We have a first aid kit, and the closest AED is in another building several yards away. Drinking water is made available in refillable pitchers.

Our closest bathrooms are a building away, about a one-minute walk. A gender neutral bathroom is also available, and this is accessible by key which you can request from staff. We are not a scent-free zone, and because herbalism classes take place here, cannot guarantee that the site will be clear of any essential oil smells. If you have needs not addressed here, please reach out to Mallory Craig at mcraig@thehort.org.