Arbutus Menziesii, ink and watercolour.
Giant Pacific Octopus, watercolour done with salty seawater, and a bit of extra salt for texture, with archival ink line work on top.
Orcas are incredible, my first sighting was a pod just off the shore of Nanaimo from the ferry when moving back from the mainland.
Coves of East Sooke.
This series of watercolour landscapes is a perpetual panorama plein-air project I challenged myself to, not done in any particular order but set up on my pages running from East to West of the various seascapes and waterfalls around my local area. All water is sourced from the subject, which led to some wonderful salt textures and surprise results! I set the composition up to run across the seam of my sketchbook in an attempt to free myself from the constraints of a 'perfect' sheet of paper in front of me. Dirty water and folded seams let me be free to sketch without the burdening fear of imperfections and just go with it.
This series of watercolour landscapes is a perpetual panorama plein-air project I challenged myself to, not done in any particular order but set up on my pages running from East to West of the various seascapes and waterfalls around my local area. All water is sourced from the subject, which led to some wonderful salt textures and surprise results! I set the composition up to run across the seam of my sketchbook in an attempt to free myself from the constraints of a 'perfect' sheet of paper in front of me. Dirty water and folded seams let me be free to sketch without the burdening fear of imperfections and just go with it.
Common ferns of Vancouver Island.
Herpetological critters sighted around my new home in Metchosin, a mix of drawing inks and watercolour.
A page celebrating the wild botanicals that flowered in my yard in May
I just love when nature repeats itself in shapes and patterns! These patterns are all around us if you look for it.
This page was my first time playing with a paint-on resist gum, and I am in love with how well the foxglove turned out thanks to the white paper coming through the water washes!
With the resist I also experimented here with underpainting in yellow before masking off flower shapes for the bright green wash of foliage.
Lonicera ciliosa are some of the most interesting shapes I've seen, and a tasty snack while hiking in the area at the right time of year
WIP of a page of camas flowers at Summit Park in Victoria.
Finished spread of the Camas study, and its Garry oak ecosystem lookout at Summit Park in Victoria. Camas is not only a stunning plant, but an edible in the asparagus family! Aboriginal people tended the Garry oak ecosystems, using fire and cultivation as management tools. The edible bulbs of camas and other species were the focus of the plant harvest. So important were these plants that the Victoria area was originally known as Camosun, or “place to gather camas.”
Stonecrop at Devonian Park in Metchosin.
This Foxglove was the first time I tried my hand at using a frisket paint resist for the white speckles on the interior of the petals, and I am so happy with how it came out!
This Nootka Rose was painted freehand plein air, a difficult feat with the bees buzzing and the petals flapping on a windy day at Devonian Park in Metchosin!
The black ink details were added later on, and touched up on a return visit to the park.
Sooke Potholes Park, a favourite swimming hole
A day of swimming at the Sooke Potholes Park. I chased these beautiful puffy clouds down with sketching tools in tow until a good spot to swim lined up with a view of this beautiful sky
Garry Oak, Quercus Garryana painted plein air. Plein air is always a challenge mostly due to quickly moving sun and dancing shadow. So I thought it only apt this day to practice for the first time with Daniel Smith Shadow Violet!
There is no storm watching quite like the view from the West coast of Vancouver Island. This was my partner looking out from an inlet in Tonquin Park, Tofino, during February as the tide came in and the cold wind slapped our faces.
Coniferous trees found around my home, learning about the incredible differences in their details.
Barnacles! These pages depict barnacle covered driftwood at two lovely peaceful local beaches, the left is Roche Cove in East Sooke, and on the right is Portage Park in Esquimalt.
Some inkwork florals, preceding some delicious berries ready to be foraged around my homestead!
Harbour seals in banana pose! This gesture the seals do with their tails is only done when they feel at their most serene and comfortable. I spotted these freckly cuties at Whiffin Spit in the Sooke harbour at daybreak, the day I solidified a home to move to in the south island. I thought it only right to commemorate the sense of peace that comes with finding a comfortable and quiet home to move into with these adorable cuties that can find peace in the most rocky of places.
A quick plein-air sketch of the tree scenes found at Matheson Lake Park. I visited this spot with my good friend Jen, where we challenged each other to a 'draw.' We sat back-to-back with the challenge of painting the view on each side with a timer of 30 minutes without any under-drawing. We then shuffled 180 degrees and painted the opposite view, before revealing to each other what we had each come up with! If you'd like to see the results, visit us at my instagram link below, or hers www.instagram.com/isolinestudios
The view from my front yard over the Sooke Basin
One of the rare times I managed to capture a work in progress shot. Working from vague background to the detailed forefront. When I work plein air like this I go in fast and loose with paint only and add the inky details later, unlike when doing more in-depth detailed study works with botany and mycology in mind where I will really study the lines and shapes with just ink first.
My sketching kit! I bought this great hot-pressed watercolour paper sketchbook and leather bag at a market during my time studying in Florence and it has been my go-to for plein air work. My paint pans are from Art Toolkit and Opus Art Supplies, and I typically use paints from Daniel Smith, Windsor and Newton, Opus brand paints and local paint maker Understory Studios.
Celebrating a beautiful tree, Arbutus Menziesii. The right image was done gesture sketching at Witty's Lagoon Park in Metchosin, the left were done at home from reference images.
The beaches of Port Renfrew are hands down my favourite spot to watch sea life on this island so far. This is just a handful of the critters I've seen on the Juan De Fuca trails. Sea lions, black bears, humpback and killer whales being a bit too large to fit on this page...
Just a little surrealist break, done after a VERY rainy walk through the woods surrounding Port Alberni on a cold November day.
If you have never stuck your nose in an Arbutus flower blossom, I urge you to! It smells like an incredible honey-sweet floral and just fills the air here where I live in East Sooke in the springtime!
One of the first sketches in this journal actually, I will never stop being fascinated with the mosses and massive old growth forests here. Cathedral Grove in Port Alberni.
A breath of fresh air after a long series of scientific illustrations, this seascape depicts my favourite local beach here in Metchosin.
The first of a series of pages of watercolour waterfalls. For each piece the water used is sourced from the subject matter! To be continued!
The WIP page of plein air waterfalls.
WIP shot on location at Whiffin Spit in Sooke, this page of panorama seascapes is all done in watercolour, with the water sourced from the subject matter... which made for some very interesting and lovely salt textures in the paint!
WIP page of some seascapes in East Sooke.
Chalk pastel is a fun medium to work with, this plein-air was a quick sketch at the lake behind my home back on the mainland.
Capturing fall colours at Blinkhorn Lake Park. Another challenge in jumping right in with paint on paper, as I find I have a tendency to get lost in too many details.
I will forever be fascinated by the fungi life here. I wanted these pages to feel as maximalist as the forest floor.
Fungi sketches page 2. These were done in archival ink.
Mushrooms after rain. In the 2020 lockdown as we all know there was not much else to do but visit the forest. I found myself becoming obsessed with learning about fungi for these past few crazy years! This page displays 'raindrops' in line with each mushroom reading both the common and scientific names of each colourful fungus.
Mushrooms, left detail.
Mushrooms, right detail.
Mushrooms pre-paint, I had almost decided at this point to back out of my original colourful plans and stick to my comfort zone of black inks. I am so glad I pushed through that feeling!
I had the great opportunity to take part in a guided mushroom walk with mycology expert Kem Luther, thanks to a program at the Metchosin ArtPod gallery ( you can see the result of this over in my Traditional Illustrations). It was a splendid day for fungi spotting! We did some journal sketching while chasing after the myco-experts, and learned a ton in a short time. Lots of new sightings for me, and some massive artists conk! We saw a few way up in the trees that must have been a hundred years old, some about the size of a coffee table!
Another page born from the great privilege of a guided forest walk, this time with both Andy MacKinnon and Kem Luther, local mycologists. Another great day and even more mushroom sightings in a local Metchosin park. What fun scurrying after a troupe of scientists in the rainforest, furiously trying to scribble down whatever I could pick up from them!
A quick shot while in the process of chasing after Kem and his mycologist friends through the woods. Fat Jack, suillus caerulescens.
This page is the study prequel to my first full-sized mushroom illustration. (check it out over in my Traditional Illustrations section). Shaggy Manes, Coprinus Comatus, are just too fascinating a fungus not to include way more detail than just looks alone!
Shaggy Mane detail, in their late Inky state.
Shaggy Mane detail.
Detail, inked inks.
The winter of 2021 I dove headfirst into this mushroom obsession of mine, as you may already be able to tell. Inspired by the forest of Metchosin and the bountiful collection of species here, I have been working to learn as much as I can about these curious creatures we share our forests with.
Another page, I just can't get enough of these characters!
Wavy caps, psilocybe cyanescens. This piece was actally a commissioned sketch destined to be a tattoo for another Islander.
A very different type of journal page, spore prints!
In December 2021 I suffered a very difficult set of injuries, due to a bad motor vehicle accident. through the winter of 2021 through spring of 2022 I had been making several spore prints, allowing nature to make some art for me, and had been unsure what exactly to do with them. So instead of sit frustrated that I couldn't get outside and create, I looked around my studio and decided to tape these into my journal, intending for them to be reminiscent of microscope slides.
Freshly printed
The finished page of spore prints! This was very difficult to capture on camera due to all of the glare over the tape, bu was avery fun experiment in preservation! We'll see how this all holds up in my very high traffic sketchbook!
Conocybe tenera, looking a bit celestial.
Pluteus cervinus, gills vs. spores comparison.
Some more examples of playing with spores - ink and dye making! I first dyed some white watercolour paper with Turkey Tail, Shaggy Mane and Dyer's Polypore mushrooms! After reserving aside some of the Shaggy Mane ink, i reduced with orange peel, cloves and alcohol and added some gum arabic to create an ink to draw with, and sketched out the likenesses of each mushroom onto the papers! A wonderful project!
After considering pasting these into my journal, I actually decided to frame these onto my walls after all as I was so happy with how they turned out, and wanted to enjoy and share them!
I also created a larger 5"x7" piece from the Shaggy Mane ink and dyed paper.
Ghost Pipes, Monotropa Uniflora.
Sketching from some late summer reference photos of sightings around the woods behind my house. Challenged myself to show translucent waxy texture in simple lines.
Flower detail. You can see why their monikers arevariations of 'pipe' and given the title uniflora especially in this phase.
Detail of the inner structure of the flower.
Indian Pipe is actually a member of the Ericaceae, the blueberry family, which includes blueberries and cranberries (of course), as well as rhododendron, azalea and arbutus, among others. Of the 3000+ non-photosynthetic plant species, the majority are in this family. The presence of Indian Pipe in a woodland usually means the soil is very rich and the forest extremely high-quality. If you spot the white flowers there, chances are there are many other unique and uncommon species to be found nearby.
This is one example of the two-sided greeting cards I have recently mocked up for local market table sales this fall season. So far I have kept this to local sale only, but do reach out if you are interested in my nature journal pages as greeting card prints!
Lichen is fascinating, and it has been covering my backyard in shades of green just begging to be drawn. I really love the shade of blue-green these types have, and was very close to adding some soft colour here, but decided against it keeping lots of inky black as I just love how high contrast the black rhizines on the undersides of these lichen are compared to their pale green tops. Really interesting similarities and strong differences each of these types have. I had a fun time learning about the attachment structure of those with rhizohyphae (like the underside of the freckle pelt here) and the medicinal uses the usnea have.
A shot of the specimen, with the wonderful hand dyed paper cover of my sketchbook.
Painting on location on a cold day at Esquimalt Lagoon, tucked in to the driftwood.
I usually exclude any likeness of humans from my works, but I did love the perspective of this father and son pair silhouetted against the giant ships headed for Victoria.
Studying Fawn Lilies at Playfair Park in Victoria! one of springs most beautiful native plants. We spotted a rare two-headed lily, and even a few three-headed blossoms!
One of these lilies must have been knocked over in this unprotected area of the park, giving a great view of the underside of the bowing blossom, great opportunity for a detailed sketch!
The beautiful cherry blossoms of Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.
I gave myself the mission of using every colour of the rainbow that is my simple paint palette for this sketch! So happy with how bright and whimsical it came to be.
Another often overlooked beauty of the coast, the seaweeds that the Pacific have to offer are incredible! If I haven't already mentioned it, i tend to use seawater and added sale for my watercolour washes and sketches. I find the textures and granulation really add to the crunchy saltwater feel the landscapes and specimens emanate! This particular piece actually sparkles under sunlight still!
The samples! Nothing better than sitting in the winter sun, quietly and slowly assembling all the colours the ocean has spit upon the shore.
I spent new years day searching for my new years bird, while I'm not necessarily a very superstitious person, I couldn't ignore it when a Varied Thrush hit the window right in the moment i was sitting down with the intention of looking for omens from the sky that January 1st. What was going to be a day of pure rest turned into a bird funeral to honour and transmute this birds passing into a (hopefully) positive portent.
I painted this bird with one of my ground mineral handmade paints from Sierra at Understory Supply, because it is made from minerals this wonderful blue paint, called Pleiades, sparkles and glistens in sunlight! Much like the iridescent black feathers of the thrush. I sketched in a little scene of the arbutus grove in our front yard as well, at our new home here in East Sooke, with the view over the Juan de Fuca.
This sketch page was done on a local walk at Matheson Lake, guided by nature journal expert Lyn Baldwin and mycologist expert Kem Luther.
On the way to our next inspirational view!
I stayed back after our walk to swim and sketch some more. What a wonderful local spot.
An example of how some things that began in my plein air nature journal are transformed into larger completed artworks. I wanted this piece to depict elements of the ecosystems these damselflies thrive in, and what better place than Matheson lake in Metchosin! I carefully stole elements and sections from the previous images from my sketchbook and compiled them together into this full composition.
A rare photo of me with my work! The Metchosin Foundation puts on my favourite group show every year, after all 36 artists have created and contributed our artworks to these nature cards, we all gather in the woods and lavender fields of Metchosin and have a scavenger hunt to find our artworks hidden amongst the wilderness! So wonderfully whimsical!
I painted this piece plein air on the last day of a December camping trip at Pacheedaht Beach in Port Renfrew. It just so happened there was an earthquake and small tsunami on the beach and I just barely managed to scramble away from the shore when we noticed the waves getting just a bit too big! Not knowing this was a tsunami occurrence to evacuate from, I finished the piece from the comfort and safety of our van back at our site by the water.
A shot before adding the black inky details.
The view from the cozy bed in our van... at a much safer distance from the crashing waves!
Mosses are so fascinating once you get up close to them! I implore you to look as closely as you can at all the tiny little treasures on your next hike, you will not be disappointed by all the wonders this world tucks away in the miniature!
I find starting in just black and white and focusing closely on line and shape really helps discern the different species.
Colour is a wonderful thing! How amazing the different greens all the bryophyte world has to offer!
Ledge Spike Moss and Step Moss are my two favourite mosses, there's something about the way they branch out and vary their colours that just intrigues me so much!
Sometimes if I am feeling stuck or disconnected from my colour memory with the paints in my drawers, I will prepare before sketching by making an intentional swatch page like this and warming up my skills with writing in this script style. I also love referring back to some of my many art books for palette inspiration and trying to pick out what colours the greats may have used!
Did you know the human eye sees more different shades of green than any other species, and any other colour in our spectrum? Ask any artist and they will tell you, getting the right green for the task is a very difficult step!
This little paint reference card comes everywhere with me, when I put together my paint pan kit from Art Toolkit I assembled with Daniel Smith and Windsor & Newton paints and swatched them out here. The back side pictured is the pan I got pre-made from Opus. It fits in a little pocket in the back of one of my sketchbooks.