Watercolor
in the Garden-- introductory course in painting with
Elizabeth M. Dunham, botanical illustrator, www.elizabethmdunham.com
September 20 & 27, 2008,
2-day program. 8:30am to 12:30pm (both days)
Express your artistic side in a fun and relaxing atmosphere with area
botanical illustrator, Elizabeth M. Dunham. Elizabeth will lead
participants through the basis of water color painting and photography using
the Gardens as the subject of several painting exercises. The second day
will consist of a brief critique of student work from day one and
continuation of painting exercises and photo-transfer. All skill levels
welcome!
Registration required
$75 per person, supply kit available for $60.00 or you can bring your own
watercolor supplies. (Paper, pencils, photo transfer equipment provided.)
Artist
Bio Born in 1980 in Madison, Wisconsin to a family of horticulturists,
it is no wonder that beautiful flowers and landscape scenes fill Elizabeth
M. Dunham’s canvases. Needing to nurture her creative side and distinguish
herself from the agriculture industry her parents ruled, Elizabeth studied
Art and Graphic Design first in Kansas, then graduated in 2003 from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. After a brief graphic design internship at
the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection she
started working not for a design firm but for the family company, Knight
Hollow Nursery, Inc. Knight Hollow Nursery, Inc. is a high technology,
specialized plant nursery clones high value and unique horticultural crops.
This job keeps her close to all the things she loves and inspires her to
paint; her family, the plants, and the land.
Working mostly in watercolor but also in
acrylic, gouache, and oil, she paints what she sees on a daily basis: the
beauty of plants, people and their relationships to the land. Elizabeth
seeks to show the realities that have ruled her life through her paintings.
“Beauty in my artwork is in the connection between me and the paint, the
brush and the canvas, the water and the air. Creating art is like creating a
garden or cooking. You have to use the correct ingredients in the way that
they are meant to be used. You cannot expect to control every way the medium
behaves, whether it be paint or plant. I cannot control the way the water
and paint might flow in to the minute cracks and bumps in the paper. I
cannot control the way the paints will mix with each other. I can simply
facilitate the medium to grow in its own perfect way; just as one must do to
have beauty in the garden. Everything has a life force of its own in this
world.”
Elizabeth has had art shows across southern
Wisconsin including in the Overture Center in Madison. She teaches art
classes at local gardens and is currently illustrating a perennial garden
book that will be released in May, written by Roy Diblik of Northwind
Perennial Farm and published by American Nurseryman. You can see her work
now at the Jewelers Workshop on the west side of Madison, WI.
Download a copy of the free Adobe
Acrobat Readerto view and print information provided as PDF
files.