Drawing From Nature: Intro to Scientific Illustration
Improve your observational drawing skills in this nature drawing workshop, where you’ll render natural specimens and try out various media.
Not scheduled right now. Last taught 2026.
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The workshop
Improve your observational drawing skills in this nature drawing workshop, where you’ll render natural specimens and try out various media. You will practice reliable and repeatable methods for measuring proportions and building values to convey convincing form, structure, and cast shadows, practicing with a variety of natural objects such as shells, cones, plants, and more. You’ll train your eye to detect and imitate subtle shifts in value and color–essential for capturing the texture and pattern of complex forms in nature. While the focus is on natural objects, the techniques you develop will apply to a range of drawing subjects, media, and styles.
This workshop is open to all experience levels.
Skills and techniques
- Learning to draw natural objects from life
- Using mixed media
- Careful observation of natural objects
Before you come
Details for students
Where
One of the farm's studios, confirmed at check-in. See the campus
Staying on the farm
Housing, meals, the daily schedule, and places to stay nearby are on Prepare for your workshop.
Your instructor
Rebekah Lowell
Rebekah Lowell is a Maine Master Naturalist, award-winning author/illustrator, designer, and educator with a curiosity for the natural world. A mother and survivor of domestic abuse, she is passionate about resilience, freedom, and hope. Her middle grade novel in verse, THE ROAD TO AFTER (Nancy Paulsen/Penguin), was a Junior Library Guild selection. Her picture book illustration for, CATCHING FLIGHT (Doubleday/Random House), was long listed for the World Illustration Awards. She earned her BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design, and her MFA from Hollins University. She is a certified Nature Journal Educator through the Wild Wonder Foundation and is a Natural Science Illustration Certificate candidate at RISD. Her artwork has been featured on the Maine Duck Stamp six times. Rebekah is an adjunct professor at the University of New England and serves on the Board for York County Audubon. When not in her studio, you can find her birding, rescuing monarchs from local hayfields, or hiking the 4,000-footers in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Questions about this workshop, housing, or meals? Email registrar@sanbornmills.org or call (603) 435-7314. Please read the workshop policies before you register.