Botanical Drawing in Colored Pencil with Priscilla Humay

Wednesday, March 12, 2025 | 12:00 - 3:00pm

This botanical drawing class will have emphasis on the aesthetics of flowers, plants, vegetation, and natural objects. Botanical Art is the artistic representation of natural specimens that can be recognized in detail although not necessarily with scientific accuracy. Choose your own flower, fruit, vegetable, plant, stem, twig, or leaf as a specimen, OR use a specimen provided by the instructor. Learn how to set up your specimen showing its best qualities to draw and find ways to edit unnecessary parts. Using colored pencil on professional grade paper, you will work to achieve a near likeness of your specimen. The instructor chose the colored pencil medium because of its brilliant color, and that it can produce fine detail. It is also forgiving, and pigment can be lifted and reapplied. Mistakes can be erased, and colors can be layered vibrantly.

Learn to draw with correct proportions from observation. Individual guidance and continuous drawing instruction as to correct color, proportions, flow, and tonal value will be given.

Students are responsible for bringing the following supplies:

• Student’s own specimen suggestions ~ (flower, pod, vegetable, fruit, twig, plant section, stem. (If specimen is delicate, cut last minute and keep damp or in container of water.)
• A box on which to prop and/or put the specimen
• White sheet of paper or cloth to put under specimen
• Any cardboard or board to use as drawing board under your paper (paper is 11” x 15”)
• Any professional grade colored pencils you already have (the museum has some to borrow)
• Any eraser: your favorite for colored pencil, Black Factus 18, kneadable

Suggested Optional Supplies:

• Ruler: small clear plastic for measuring
• Magnifying glass
• Measuring divider 
• Soft inexpensive brush to dust off loose pigment or erasures

About the Instructor

Priscilla exhibits nationally, is in private and corporate collections, and is featured in major publications. She is a Signature Member of the Colored Pencil Society of America and served on its National Governing Board. Priscilla was a co-director of ARC, Chicago art gallery. Through the U.S. Department of Interior National Park Service, she was awarded two Artist in Residencies at the Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. She taught at the College of Lake County IL, Chicago Botanic Garden, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin TX. Her BFA is from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, MS from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and Post Graduate Study at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. In her own art, she loves to capture the essence of nature’s beauty and enjoys sharing this through teaching.