Field Illustration
with Nicola Florimbi
$100 lab fee | July 26–August 1 | Skill-building
Inspired by the landscape and wildlife of Ox-Bow, this class invites students to develop an illustrative portfolio in pencil, ink, watercolor, and gouache. Students will build effective and inventive travel easels to explore campus and, working both outside and in the studio, will develop a personal approach to rendering and responding to the plants and animals that call Ox-Bow home. Demonstrations will cover methods for effective color mixing and composing in the field as well as techniques for recreating botanical structure, basic animal anatomy, and biological textures including bark, shell, and feathers. We will review the work of John James Audubon, Walton Ford, Evelyn Statsinger, and Kiki Smith and students will carry a naturalist pocket guide for reference. Onsite and studio drawing assignments will be accompanied by readings and discussions of naturalist poetry by Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, and Sharon Olds. Assignments will challenge students to notice the nuance in nature and will include a bug hunt, with invertebrates sketched in graphite, and a watercolor assignment that gives visual expression to a work of poetry or literature. Students will be encouraged to propose a final project inspired by their observations.
Nicola Florimbi is an artist born in Santa Fe, New Mexico and lives in Chicago, Illinois. Education: 2022-2024- MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL 2017-2019 - BFA, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA 2013-2016, BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. Group Exhibitions: 2024 - Orange Noise, The Capsule, Chicago, IL, 2024 - Graduate Show I, SAIC, Chicago, IL, 2018 - Until You Say So, Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA, 2017 - AHWA, Salafi Cowboy Collective, Los Angeles, CA, Bibliography: “Brother Outsider.” Damien Rose, Minaret Records, 2020, album cover, “On Sexual Violence.” Journal: Art Speaks I, 2018, Otis College of Art and Design, cover image, pg.10-17, “Cosmopolitanism.” Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism, XII, 2014, cover image, pg. 20,110