STORY BEHIND THE ART OF MARGARET SAYLOR

17th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists at The Horticultural Society of New York

Dryad’s Saddle

Polyporus squamosus

Mushrooms and fungi are beautiful. When I began painting them, I put out an alert to friends to let me know if they happen to see something intriguing on their travels…I received a text from my buddy Jamie who was shuttling his father-in-law to their daily diner breakfast. "Quick…intersection of Shelbourne Road and Gibralter Road…big fungus at the base of a tree." So off I went, with a box, a bag, a knife, and a camera. (And sturdy running shoes, just in case.) Parked, ran over, took a few photos, made a quick sketch, pried it off the tree, ran back to my car, and away I went.

This Dryad's Saddle, as I later identified it to be, was unique to me. I had never seen it before, and found it to be very different from anything I painted previously, as it formed a large clump of singular fungi. While interesting to look at from the front (it grew close to the bottom of a tree, splaying out towards me), it was even more intriguing if I viewed it from the part that was attached to the bark…like the tree's view of the fungus. Sometimes the least obvious viewpoint makes the most interesting composition.

I used a piece of calfskin vellum which is slightly grainy and light in color. The painting - and drawing, really - is a combination of graphite over watercolor washes to achieve a real atmospheric fade for the middle ground and background, but a highly detailed, painted section of the lone piece that was attached to the tree, rough and textural where it was ripped away, with colors pushed and much detail described visually. There is graphite in the central piece also, but the detail is more painterly and colorful here.

I feel more and more comfortable using slightly tinted washes on vellum, a substrate fairly new to me, with the highest level of detail saved for the immediate foreground. I love the graphite; good old Caran d'Ache graphite pencils leave an almost silvery effect, especially on vellum, and when coupled with the detailed watercolor work, produce the desired effect. Still loving the Da Vinci 4 and 6 brushes. Used a little JPP (John Pastoriza-Pinol) masking technique throughout…nice to be able to mask in steps and work the negative and positive areas simultaneously. I am finding that the large pieces of vellum cut from a whole skin can be quite striking…and liberating. I typically work small but I wanted to show the subject life size and it happens to be large. And I was surprised to find that I liked working at that size - the larger piece of vellum gave me freedom in painting I didn't expect. Once I learned to not fear the vellum, things really opened up. I used to have trouble getting started - now it is hard to know when to stop!

I have been heavy into mushrooms as of late, and I find it very satisfying to paint something with which everyone is familiar but which not many non-artists would imagine to be the subject of a painting. Plus, the mushrooms are so plentiful! I love being in the woods, not seeing any mushrooms, then suddenly…you see one…and two…and then they are everywhere. What is that called? A kind of reverse plant blindness? Our eyes see the shape and we begin to pick up on that as we scan the forest floor. And everyone has some kind of mushroom story to share. If a painting can inspire that kind of interaction, I've done what I set out to do.

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