CAROLE GORIN'S STORY BEHIND THE ART

Following in the Bartrams' Footsteps

Contemporary Botanical Artists Explore the Bartrams' Legacy

A Traveling Exhibition

Spanish Moss Hanging on a Laurel Oak Leaf

I have been an artist all of my life and have a degree in Art Education. I enjoy working in colored pencil and began studying botanical art in 2001 under the caring eye of Olga Eysymontt at the Los Angeles County Arboretum. I was so excited; I had found my passion in botanical art and pencil. I am a member of ASBA and the local Florida Society for Botanical Artists as well as the Colored Pencil Society of America local and national chapters. My work has been accepted into many different venues around the country.

When I first began sketching the Spanish Moss*, I was so entranced with the moss that the oak trees it colonized were secondary. Then I took a good look at the oak trees. They are so massive and stately that I had to capture them, but I didn’t want them to dominate my painting. I enjoyed the way the plant weaves in, out, around and down hooking onto itself and that is what I wanted my audience to focus on. Because the moss is so complicated, the biggest challenge for me was finding what part of the plant I was working on as I moved back and forth between the plant and my drawing. I love the feel of colored pencil on paper and use mostly Prismacolor pencils because their waxiness works well and is comfortable to apply.

*Spanish Moss is not really a moss but is a member of the bromeliad family. It is not a parasite but an epiphyte, a free living plant that hangs on trees and draws its sustenance from the air.

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