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Ten Years of Botanical Illustration

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Pruning Hydrangea – my first botanical illustration
for the “Digging In” gardening  column in the Washington Post.

Looking back on ten years of illustration –botanical, entomological and more!

As I complete ten years of botanical illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post I am more prone to remembering. Looking back on that collection of 500 plus illustrations, mostly botanical but sometimes entomological and more (after all you never quite know what you might find in your garden!) I am reminded of all the changes I myself have gone through in that time. After only a few weeks of illustrating the column from my studio in Washington D.C, my husband and I upped everything and moved to the Pacific North West. Then, within a year I became a parent for the first time giving birth to a beautiful, energetic and feisty baby girl. It has been quite a journey and all that time I never once missed a week in the gardening column.

Weekly practice of producing a botanical illustration.

Creating the botanical illustration became a welcome weekly practice for me, a ritual almost. I enjoyed the discipline of it all, most especially the quiet time I needed in order to create such detailed illustrations. For some folks it may seem like madness to use the technique of millions of tiny black dots to painstakingly record in minute botanical detail every flower stamen, leaf vein and tiny bud, but for me it was a kind of meditation.

Botanical illustration as meditation?

During that time every week I stopped, became very quiet, and immersed myself totally in the process. Sitting there bent over the drawing board I lost all sense of time. Often I would have to jump up with a start when I realized that I had to pick up my daughter from school with only five minutes to spare. Luckily we live a short walking distance from her school. I am surprised how much I miss my weekly ‘meditation’ already.

Finding an illustration style that suited black and white drawing for botanical illustration.

My illustration style changed over the years also. I started out using a simple cross hatching, seen above in my first illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column –Pruning Hydrangeas. That style began to change before the first year had ended, evolving into the more detailed and time consuming illustration style of stippling.  This change was necessitated by the traditional newspaper medium itself. I discovered that the stippling worked well for botanical illustration and reproduced well in black and white print. With the stippling I was able to show more detail. This was done to help readers recognize the plant more easily.

A greeting card business and a new decade.

Usually I don’t allow myself time to stop and reflect in this way.  As soon as one botanical illustration is finished I am on to the next one, hardly stopping to draw breath.  By choosing to write this illustration blog I am forced, and happily so, to stop regularly and go inside, to remember and reflect. I realize that this is not only the start of a great new adventure for me- launching a greeting card business and illustration blog- it is also the start of a new decade for us all. Who knows where the next ten years will bring us?

Aislinn Adams

My First Blog and Last Botanical Illustration

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My last botanical illustration for the Washington Post- Southern magnolia Alta

As I write this, my first blog, I also work on my last illustration for the “Digging In” gardening column of the Washington Post newspaper. I have been producing a weekly botanical illustration for this column for ten years. My last illustration is of a southern magnolia Alta, Magnolia grandiflora “Alta”- an upright, columnar, tree. I’m glad to have it as the subject of my last illustration as I love its flowers and leaves. I want to do a good job, create something beautiful.  There are southern magnolias growing on my street here in Salem, Oregon but it is March and not the season for blooms.  I could draw the whole tree in its conical shape but I don’t think that would be as interesting as a close-up drawing of its large, dramatic white flowers and big, shiny, evergreen leaves.

Native plants of the Appalachian Piedmont Region.

In search of some references I “google” southern magnolia Alta and the first image I click on is from Mt Cuba Gardens, Delaware in the eastern United States. I take this as a good omen as I know the garden well.  I had been an intern there in the spring of 1997, my first year in the USA. Mt Cuba is well known for its extensive collection of plants native to the Appalachian Piedmont Region. I sought an internship there so that I could study these native plants. That spring at Mt Cuba I was surrounded by beauty. Every day I watched the garden come alive as a diverse array of spring ephemeral flowers woke up from their winter slumber. I felt very lucky to be able to work in such a bewitching place alongside thoughtful gardeners who were very passionate about what they did and shared their knowledge generously. As I pour over photos of Mt Cuba and wander down memory lane I picture myself in those pictures amongst the plants.  Even after so many years the garden is still familiar to me. I recognize where I worked and remember how I had carefully stepped between the creeping phlox and bluets in search of any weeds that might have escaped attention.

Spring blooms in the eastern United States.

My first spring in the eastern United States is a vivid and forceful memory.  I had no idea how dazzling a display nature could bring forth.  I was totally bowled over by the spectacle. I wonder if many of you, having grown up with this annual display, are now so accustomed to it that you take it for granted.  Being from Ireland and seeing it for the first time that spring was intoxicating.  I was charmed and delighted by every new plant discovery and marveled at what seemed like a never-ending parade of blooms- red buds, choke cherries, tulip poplars, mountain laurels, dogwoods- so many species, so much color. Later that same year I was delighted once again by the southern magnolias.

I’ve heard that our strongest sense for memory is smell but my memory of that first spring is an extremely powerful visual one. I find it difficult to pull myself away from the Mt Cuba pictures. It is an effort to come back to today and my last botanical illustration for the “Digging In column”. I have a deadline and time is slipping away. The southern magnolia Alta beckons.

Aislinn Adams