Virtual Field Trip: Monarchs & Milkweeds Micro Safari
Join me on a new kind of exploration—a micro safari! You don’t have to go far to discover wonderful things. We’ll hunker down in a field of milkweed and observe, learn about, and sketch monarchs, as well as many other insects. BONUS: If we have time we might just scoot down to Mexico to observe winter monarch habitat as well. (EDITING NOTE: We had to blur-out some of video at the end; I didn’t have permission to use the PBS / BBC footage even for a free education clip! Sorry about that! You can see the video clip in the link below.)
Footage in the explorations is from: Yosemite Nature Notes; Dominique Lalond Nature Films on YouTube; PBS Nature.
Roseann’s pages from the demonstrations in the workshop.
I mostly use a limited palette of five transparent watercolors (all Daniel Smith): aerolin yellow; quinacridone rose; manganese blue; burn Sienna; indanthrone blue). For the iridescent beetle, though, I followed John Muir Laws’ tutorial in his book The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, and first laid down a pthalo green and a little bit of pthalo blue, then added the darks with blue-black mixed with ultramarine blue and burn Sienna, which lifts off easily. The pthalos are very staining so are good to use if you are lifting color from on top of them.
Resources from the Workshop
Metadata and Nature data:
IMAGES FROM EACH STOP (CLICK TO ENLARGE; RIGHT-CLICK TO DOWNLOAD):
Workshop Attendees’ Pages
