Now that I think about it, the DAM exhibit last weekend was just okay for me. I was expecting more work by the headlining artists but there was one Frida piece, one Van Gogh piece, etc. When my Mom and I arrived, we got there a little early and looked around. In the artist's studio area there are big blank pads of paper ready for you to draw with whatever they have available to you. They also have artists create right there and people are encouraged to come by and watch them work. We saw the the most beautiful colored pencil botanical illustrations and we were both in awe of the artist, Susan Rubin. One of the pieces was an illustration of a type of bean and then in the lower corner there was an actual seed packet with the same illustration. We both thought the artist reproduced the vintage packaging illustration into her own. We were corrected by one of the workers who said that this is the artist who drew the illustration for the packaging. The larger version was the original.
The bonus was that Susan would be in the studio early in the day so we would get to see her work. We did head over there when we were done with the exhibit and to watch her work was a treat. She uses colored pencils on mylar and the effect is gorgeous. She enjoys looking through her layers of colored pencil just like I like looking through my layers of watercolor. So meticulous and soothing. She told us about her process and how she teaches botanical illustration as well. I had no idea that profession was so small with about 1,000 botanical illustration artists in the country. When you consider there are probably 3,000 dentists in Colorado alone, that put into perspective how small that subset is.
Such an unexpected treat!