Rotary Nature Center

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly" -- Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7 Shakespearean tragedies usually don't involve a lot of nature journaling, but we've all been in situations where there's some fleeting image or precious information we'd to jot down as quickly as possible. By writing Read More

Let's reinvent the wheel in this hands on color mixing workshop. If you learned that red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors you have been sold a bill of goods that is guaranteed to make muddy colors.  Learn a better color triad that will help you easily mix the colors you want when you Read More

In this workshop we  will explore landscape drawing on the run- how to draw and paint a landscape in five minutes or less, while standing up, in wet weather. Learn how to see basic shapes, simplify values, and discard unecessary detail. I will demonstrate several techniques including water soluable pen, aquash pencil, limited palette watercolor, Tombo pen, and Read More

Working with wet watercolor and aquarelle will help your journal sketching become more lively and spontaneous. Instead of carefully drawing lines and then coloring them in, we’ll invert the process, splashing down loose watercolor and then drawing into it to define shapes. We’ll also explore some special effects you can get with wet-on-wet watercolor. This approach Read More

Special guest lecture with instructor Mark Simmons Perspective allows us to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on the flat page. Though it may seem intimidating, a basic understanding of perspective gives us a bag of tricks that we can use to add a sense of depth and distance to our scenes, and convincing volume Read More

With a few tricks in your pocket, you can quickly and accurately draw live birds. Learn how to quickly get down the basic lines of ducks geese and other waterbirds in a few pencil strokes and then try your hand at drawing the birds of Lake Merritt. Even though birds do not sit still, if Read More

Watercolors are a fast and versatile way to get color into your sketchbook or journal. But many of us have been frustrated with the mechanics of getting our paint to do what we want or watched a sketch drown in a puddle of murky brown paint. Have you been frustrated by your watercolors when field Read More

So you want to draw but have not picked up a pencil since elementary school? This workshop is geared for the raw beginner who is terrified of sketching and is convinced that they can not draw. You can learn to draw. This workshop will show you how to begin. In this workshop you will learn: Read More