I wanted my art students to know that good art can be used for science. I gathered plant specimens from the Columbia River area to copy in detail.
I introduced them to vellum. Vellum comes from calves, goats or deer. Today vellum is still used by both miniaturists and botanical artists who are painting in a very precise way - typically working with 'dry' watercolour using a stippling technique or very small strokes. We used man-made vellum and I opted for colored pencils not wanting to deal with the crinkling, wrinkling of the paper when watercolor goes on too wet.
