TEEN DAY Fall Class Highlights: Botanical Illustration

For the next few weeks, we will highlight each of our classes to offer a snippet of what is going on at TEEN DAY this year.

The fall semester of the TEEN DAY Art Block is the Botanical Illustration in Watercolor class. The class is led by world-class botanical illustrator Milly Acharya. Now, I’ll come clean right from the start: I initially categorized this class as an art class. You know, watercolor work with a specific theme in mind. That sounded fantastic, just as it was. What has become clear, however, is that it is also a botanical specimen survey, in equal parts technique and design as scientific study.

The course has focused on observation of natural specimens—scouring them for small details, determining what are the most important features to capture. Participants often observe their specimens through hand lenses (magnifying glasses) to observe the minutia missed by their naked eye. They also keep a sketch book with pencil drawings of things in nature.

Additionally, study has gone into working with the watercolors themselves—mixing colors, achieving the right saturation levels, how to remove paint from the page. Achieving illustrations of such fine detail requires a lot of control over the medium and a lot of pure trial and error. Class participants spend time in class observing new techniques, rehearsing them, and then incorporating them into their own work during class and throughout the week at home.

The Botanical Illustration class has an art exhibit up through the month of November at the Tompkins County Public Library. Find student work in the glass cases at the rear of the library atrium, near the Teen Center and the Ezra Cornell Reading Room. Artwork is available for viewing anytime during regular library hours.

Family, friends and community members are invited to join us Saturday, November 17, 3-4:30pm for an artists’ reception and celebration in the BorgWarner Community Room (East). Meet the artists. Ask questions about the display. Enjoy a snack.

See closeups of all the work in the show HERE.