Paleoart and nature journaling: how time travel with a notebook
November 19 @ 10:00 am – 11:30 am PST
Learn how to paint the past with Laura Cunningham.
Meet Laura Cunningham and learn how she recreates ancient landscapes in oil paintings. She will explain and demonstrate how she researches and creates a landscape oil painting that reconstructs the past. She uses nature journaling, field sketching, drawing rough sketches, shadow studies, color studies, perspective studies, and more to finally gather together to form a complex painting in the studio. How is imagination needed to create past life and paleoart illustrations, based on detailed studies of the natural world? She will show a bunch of notebooks, field sketches, and art studies that she uses to put together a landscape scene filled with animals and plants.
About Laura
Laura Cunningham grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and studied Paleontology at UC Berkeley, and scientific illustration at UC Santa Cruz in 1991. She went on to work in the field of wildlife biology around California before moving to the field of conservation biology. She is self-taught in art and currently is working on paleoart commissions for museums. Author of A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes (Heyday 2026). https://www.californiaecologicalorigin.org.
All ages and experience levels are welcome. No registration is necessary.
Suggested donation: $20. Your donation helps support my family and me. Your generosity is deeply appreciated, and it makes an immediate difference in my ability to continue to offer these programs. This donation is not tax-deductible. Click here to donate. If you are not able to donate at this time, no problem–please continue to enjoy the classes and find another way to pay it forward in your community with acts of kindness and service. Thank you!
If you are new to Zoom or are having trouble with the meeting controls, please see these notes and suggestions on Zoom Tips for Online Classes with John Muir Laws to help you get more out of the online workshop. When possible I will also make a recording of the workshop and post it on my blog. I look forward to seeing you there!
Bring
- Your Journal and favorite drawing materials. Taking notes while you watch and participate will help you remember the new techniques and incorporate them into your journaling.
- Your sense of humor!
