I have a real love of botanical illustrations and when I happened upon the gorgeous work by Lizzie Abelson I had to know more. I contacted Lizzie to see if she’d be fine with a post about her work and, would she answer some questions. She was so agreeable and quick to reply and she is definitely a girl after my own heart with her approach to nature and her work, so read on.
Lizzie in her own words:
I am a New England-based artist specializing in contemporary, non-traditional botanical illustration. My subjects are primarily small specimens collected on walks through nearby woods, around our local reservoir and in my own backyard. I prefer to draw plants in their myriad of past-peak forms – wilted, withered, wrinkled, twisted, fragile, contorted. This autumnal focus has developed out of my personal sense of color and form which tends toward subtle earth tones and delicate yet energetic lines. Unlike with traditional botanical illustration, scientific accuracy is not my aim.
Education
BFA, Painting – Rhode Island School of Design, 1993
European Honors Program – Rome, Italy, September 1990-June 1991
What is it about nature that inspires your botanical drawings?
As much as I wish I could bring myself to paint vast, glorious, sweeping landscapes on a grand scale, I can’t resist the small, the overlooked, the underfoot. I’m attracted to the fleeting, fading nature of plants in the fall, especially. I suppose there’s not much to read into my work…I love to draw and I draw what I love.
Can you describe your process from blank page to Etsy sale (without giving away too many secrets)?
From start to Etsy: first and foremost – somewhere between shuttling my two kids out the door and onto the schoolbus, grocery shopping, dish washing, laundry sorting and all the rest – I need to set aside an hour or two to sit down and draw; this is always the hardest part and I don’t do it often enough. I have no dedicated studio space, so I set up wherever the light is best – either by the kitchen window or at our dining room table. My supplies are few: a pad of Strathmore paper (I like the creamy tone), Sumi ink, four tubes of gouache (the three primary colors plus white), a yogurt container lid for my palette, some water in a teacup, a vintage metal nibbed pen and a couple of tiny paintbrushes. Call me a snob, but I believe that any artist worth his or her salt, representationalist or not, should have a firm grasp on observational drawing. It is the bedrock on which to build all that comes after. I work exclusively from life – never from photographs. This is not to say that I draw exactly what I see…what would be the fun in that? I tweak, turn, invert, omit and alter; I wield my artistic license with a sort of restrained freedom, (oxymoron, yes). My drawings rarely take longer than a couple of hours to complete. I do very little in the way of preliminary sketching – just a light compositional layout in pencil, (from which I usually end up straying). I work on a small scale with unvaryingly muted tones. I feel that the strength and success of my work as a whole is dependent on this consistency.
I’ve never been good at self promotion and I’m fairly passive in regards to my Etsy venture. In an attempt to be a little more aggressive in “getting my work out there”, I’ve recently decided to sell limited edition archival prints of my work instead of originals, for the most part. Scanning and printing are both done in-house, (with help from my talented husband on the technical end). I also plan to print little botanical ‘zines’ soon, hopefully before Christmas, so keep an eye out for those.
What else influences your work?
As for influences, I’d say my work is steered by all of my likes, dislikes and interests combined – how could it not be? I respect countless artists, living and dead, too many to say that I’m influenced by any one in particular. My work reflects me and vice versa. I surround myself, wardrobe and home, with the same earthy tones that appear in my drawings. I prefer my music sad, slow and chock-full of pedal steel guitars. I like the lights dim. I prefer quiet over noise, fall over summer, country over city. My favorite bird is the woodthrush. I love the sweet smell, the scuff and crunch of walking though a field of freshly mown hay. I dislike opera and can’t stand the sound of chewing. I’m a sentimentalist, a perfectionist, a stickler for good penmanship. I dwell on the past. Everything I am, all I have experienced, is reflected in what I do and what I make.
Thank you Lizzie for allowing me to share your beautiful work.
You can find Lizzie blogging at http://wawbeekstudio.wordpress.com/ and you can see more of her illustrations at her Wawbeek – Lizzie Abelson Drawings Etsy Store.
All images featured a limited edition giclée prints of her original illustrations that can be purchased from Lizzie’s Etsy Store.
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