Drawn from the Wild by Caroline Ross
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- 5 min read
In Drawn from the Wild, Caroline Ross shares her passion for the natural world, not only for providing inspiration, but for the materials with which to create her artworks. Caroline’s style of painting and drawing is very different from ours as botanical artists, but this book is full of ideas for creating your own media, sourced by foraging and utilising scrap/second-hand materials. Within its pages you will find out how to make your own charcoal, pastels and inks as well as how to prepare paper for metalpoint work to mention just a few of the techniques that could be very useful for botanical artists. Throughout the book there is a recurrent theme of the timelessness of many of the techniques described and reminders of how important they were to the Renaissance artists, who did much to develop and promote the skills featured in this book.
Article by: Pam Taylor, botanist, botanical artist and ABA education team member
Drawn from the Wild is set out in such a way that it takes us on a fascinating journey in which we learn how to collect the raw materials from the world around us to make all sorts of art supplies. Then with clear and concise instructions Caroline describes how they can be transformed to create art. The book is laid out in sections with subtitles which makes it easy to find the information that you want. This is important because Drawn from the Wild is very much a book to have in your collection of art books, so that it is available when you have either collected the raw materials to make artists’ materials or want to find a different and original medium for portraying your subject.
The opening section on foraging has very useful information on how, where and when to forage in a responsible way. It also gives suggestions for the simple sort of equipment, such as bags and boxes, to have on you when out walking in case you find raw ingredients for your next project.
Caroline explores the huge variety of substances that can be used to make marks on paper or stone in the Hands On section. She makes the point that people have been using coloured, mark making stones for drawing for millennia. Even so I was amazed at the vast array of rocks and pebbles that can be used to make different coloured marks on paper or rocks.
Examples of lump media to try; images courtesy of publisher
These mark making lumps of rock can be ground down using a simple pestle and mortar and sieved to make pigments in powder form. In her earlier book, Found and Ground, Caroline explains how the powdered pigments can be made into paints, and so in the current book she describes how to use such pigments to make hard and soft pastels. She says that the method works equally well with commercial powdered pigments, which is useful for botanical artists, as I doubt whether the range of colours from natural rocks and stone would be sufficient! Could using the natural colours from the habitat where the plants one is portraying grows be an interesting way to sketch the landscape? This is certainly a book full of ideas to make you think about how to portray your subject in different and original ways.
In the section, Charcoal, we discover the variety of charcoals made from different types of wood, vines and bone and how to prepare and make charcoal suitable for the artist to use. This had me thinking about using charcoal made from small twigs from the tree I intend to portray to draw it. The permanence and lower potential for smudging of the oil charcoal that is mentioned later in the book could be particularly useful for this.
As an artist who specialises in drawing trees in ink I was particularly intrigued by the wide range of substances that can be used to make ink. Making my own ink from the tree or specimen that I intend to draw is something that I hope to experiment with in the future. To find the surprisingly simple methods to make such inks in the Pen and Ink section of Drawn from the Wild is just the inspiration that I need to get started! The illustration of the inks produced from a variety of plant sources has several surprises - who would have thought that ink produced from Prunus leaves would have a reddish hue?
Examples of tannin-bearing media to try; images courtesy of publisher
There are instructions for making the iron gall inks that were used to produce the medieval illuminated manuscripts, and also for making the traditional quill pens from feathers as well as reed pens and brushes. Work by artists who make their own media and materials for producing their artworks are featured throughout the book and I particularly enjoyed seeing the ink work of Joumana Medlej including her illustration ‘Out of the Untamed Land’.
As well as drawing materials the artist needs surfaces on which to draw. In the section entitled Surfaces Caroline explores the range of surfaces which can be used for artworks, including foraged specimens such as bark and shells, leather and wood and even scrap paper. Instructions for making your own note and sketch books, possibly sewn together with foraged fibres, are also included. It all supports Caroline’s belief that art can be produced anywhere and everywhere using sustainable or recycled products, which are inexpensive and available to all.
The introduction to metalpoint and how to make the prepared surfaces required for such work in the final section of the book, demonstrates how similar the methods we use today are to those of the Renaissance masters, who first developed many of the techniques described in Drawn from the Wild: a fitting way to conclude this thought provoking book. Comparing Durer’s silverpoint Portrait of an Unknown Man with the modern metalpoint work Hengistbury Head Cliff Strata summarises this beautifully.
Author Biography:
Caroline Ross studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art, and initially worked in art and recording studios. More recently she has specialised in creating wide ranging artworks inspired by nature, often from materials that she has made herself from foraged and repurposed ingredients. Her teaching includes life drawing, painting, ancient crafts and workshops on how to make the materials that she uses.
Where to Purchase
Published by Search Press
ISBN 978-1-80092-259-4
Available online and in bookshops