NCalSBA 2026 Activities - American Society of Botanical Artists

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2026 Activities

Visit To The Foster Museum

September 12, 2026 at 11:45 AM

The Foster Museum

940 Commercial Street in Palo Alto

Join us on September 12, 2026 for a visit to The Foster Museum in Palo Alto. The Foster Museum is a public space created to share the work of artist Tony Foster. He has traveled around the world creating works of art that go beyond mere watercolor paintings. Please take a look at the website: https://www.thefoster.org/ to get a preview of the type of artwork that Tony has created.

We will arrive at the museum at 11:45 a.m. to be ready for a tour at 12pm. After that, you are free to spend as much time as you like at the museum.

The museum is located at 940 Commercial Street in Palo Alto, near the corner of E. Charleston and San Antonio Road. Street parking is generally available, and limited parking is also available behind the museum.

The museum is located within a short drive of the Baylands Nature Preserve. If you’re inspired to paint after our visit, it is a lovely spot for plein air. https://www.paloalto.gov/Departments/Community-Services/Parks-Open-Space-Golf-Division/Neighborhood-Parks/Baylands-Nature-Preserve

If would like to attend please email Andrea LoPinto at lopinto@gmail.com as soon as possible.

ELEVATE YOUR JOURNAL SKETCHING AND PRACTICE

WITH LARA CALL GASTINGER

August 28 - 29, 2026

Sebastopol Center for the Arts

Date:

Friday, August 28, 2026, 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Saturday, August 29, 2026, 9:00 am - 2:00 pm

Location:

Sebastopol Center for the Arts

282 S. High Street, Sebastopol, CA

Join Lara Call Gastinger to learn field skills for drawing outside that she uses in her perpetual journal. For the first half day, we will explore different techniques and approaches to making observations. The second day will be spent outside in the morning, putting these skills into practice. This will be combined with some indoor time spent refining the sketches and adding color and text. We will use one sheet of 9 x 12 Fabriano artistico to create a full sketch page.

Class will be limited to 15 participants.

Cost: $175

Class Cancellations: NCalSBA reserves the right to cancel, without penalty, any class that does not meet the minimum required number of participants: Minimum-10; Maximum-15

Classroom Lighting: The classroom does not have studio lighting. Participants may want to bring their own lighting. We can supply extension cords.

Housing:

Several West Sonoma County botanical artists have offered to host out of town registrants. If interested after registering,

contact Susan Mark-Raymond at susanmarkraymond@yahoo.com.

Materials List:

Fabriano artistico hot press 140 lb paper, 11 x 14 inches or something similar in size and quality
Micron pen (size 005), sepia or black
Portable watercolors (or your own watercolor palette) , my favorite colors include: Ultra blue, Prussian, Lemon yellow, Indian yellow, Scarlet red, Alizarin crimson, Neutral tint, Sepia, Shadow violet.
Water brush (small tip, I like Tombow or Faber-Castell)

Lara Call Gastinger is an artist and botanical illustrator from Charlottesville, Virginia, and was the chief illustrator of Flora of Virginia, a botanical reference. She has an undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in plant ecology from Virginia Tech. She has been awarded two gold medals (2007, 2018) at the Royal Horticultural Society Botanical Art Show in London and her work is in the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Her art appears in Peterson Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America and the American Society of Botanical Artists’s Botanical Art Techniques. She teaches online and in person (occasionally as a lecturer at UVA) and has traveled to Japan, Romania, and France to lead workshops.

Gastinger is renowned on Instagram for teaching her perpetual journal process and is excited to publish her book, A Perpetual Journal Practice this June 2026. She can be found at: www.instagram.com/laragastinger, www.laracallgastinger.com, www.perpetualjournal.com, and www.patreon.com/laragastinger.

Lara's book A Perpetual Journal Practice will be available for purchase.

TAKE A SKETCHING TOUR OF THE LUTHER BURBANK GARDEN

WITH AMBER TURNER - AND VIEW HIS ICONIC TREES

Friday, June 12, 2026

11:00 AM - 2:00 PM

This is an In-Person event with time to sketch, chat during lunch, and experience the arboretum through the eyes of Amber Turner. Members will meet at the Gift Shop entrance.

There is no fee; the garden has given Amber permission to lead our group. As an additional benefit to us, the garden store is offering her book for purchase at a discount: $25.00 less $5.00, plus tax, and is its own unique guide to our special visit.

This event is limited to 12 people.

Please email Susan Mark-Raymond susanmarkraymond@yahoo.com to register for this event.

On Friday, June 12, nine NCalSBA chapter members from Sonoma County, Marin County, and San Francisco met at the Luther Burbank Garden for a personal tour by Amber Turner. She was the perfect guide, as she knows the garden intimately through her work documenting the garden through her botanical art, culminating with her book, “Eye Spy A Tree”, with funding through an ASBA educational grant.

She led us through the garden’s plantings with stories of how Burbank came to live in Santa Rosa from Massachusetts and developed an amazing body of genetically improved plants. She also gave us strategies from her own drawing of the trees: how to draw an entire tree using a hand drawn grid.

It took Amber two solid years to complete this project, during the pandemic: 26 trees drawn in pen and ink. Luther Burbank’s garden came alive for us through this lovely, personal tour. Many thanks to Amber.

As a continued theme of sketching in northern California’s beautiful gardens, artists are invited to come to Santa Rosa, home of Luther Burbank, and tour the grounds of his personal garden in the heart of “the city designed for living.” We are especially excited to be led on a personal stroll of the garden by Amber Turner. Amber received an ASBA educational grant to document the trees growing in Burbank’s garden and to convey their quiet magic to garden visitors.

Amber Turner Bio: I live, teach, and garden in Northern California. As illustrating trees is my favorite thing to do, I wrote and illustrated a book called Eye Spy a Tree, Welcome to the Arboretum. It is the story of the trees at Luther Burbank Home & Gardens in Santa Rosa, CA. This 3-year ASBA Grant project consisted of 104 separate plant structure drawings of 26 tree species in pen and ink. The scope of my work extends to multiple mediums from watercolor, pen and ink, and gouache, most often with botanical subjects. Additionally, I work commercially as a surface designer creating patterns for textiles. I have a love of both science and art so that the botany is just as important as the art in my work. I just finished illustrating in watercolor, a children of all ages book celebrating the Point Reyes Peninsula based on a poem written by a friend. It illustrates not only the plants but the animals, insects in the environment as well.

Sketch Day at Tilden Regional Park Botanic Garden

Thursday, May 7, 2026 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Join Nina Antze and Cheryl Perko to explore and sketch at The Regional Parks Botanic Garden

Location: Tilden Regional Park Botanic Garden

1550 Wildcat Canyon Road, Berkeley, CA 94708

*Nina and Cheryl will meet artists at the Visitors entrance of the garden on Wildcat Canyon Rd. at 10:00 AM.

What to bring: Sketching supplies, foldable seat, lunch (There are no formal or reservable picnic areas in the Garden; there are numerous benches and lawn areas around the Garden.) Dress in layers, bring a hat.

Guidelines for visitors

A map of the garden with seasonal highlights.

https://www.ebparks.org/sites/default/files/botanic-garden-map-brochure.pdf

The garden’s web site - Tilden Regional Park Botanic Garden

Admission to the garden and parking are free

Parking: The lot can fill up quickly depending on the day of the week or garden activities; additional parking is located along Anza View Road.

Email Lynne Lyle at lynne.lyle@gmail.com if you plan to attend the activity. Please let us know you are coming by May 6.

Maximum numbers of participants: 10

NCalSBA Annual Meeting

and

2026 Plants Illustrated "In Bloom"

Artists Reception

Please join us for our Northern California Society of Botanical Artists Annual Meeting and the 2026 Plants Illustrated “In Bloom” Artists Reception.

Friday, May 1, 2026

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Julia Morgan Hall

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden

This is an opportunity for you and your guests to celebrate the artistic talents of fellow members, to renew old friendships, to share your portfolio/current work, to sell your art, and to sip a glass of wine in a beautiful setting.

Through the generosity of the UC Botanical Garden you and your guest will receive complementary admission to the Garden that afternoon. We have been told parking ($1.50/hr) will be impacted with the suggestion attendees carpool. The deadline for registration is 4/24/26.

Using Procreate

as a Botanical Art Tool

with Ellen Blonder

Virtual Program on ZOOM

Saturday, April 18, 2026 at 10:00 AM

Deadline to register April 16, 2026

Last June Ellen Blonder shared with us how she inched toward botanical art, eventually bringing photography into her mix of tools for laying out a drawing, in addition to drawing from life, using the Procreate application. Based on your enthusiasm to learn more about Procreate, Ellen is returning to walk us through using Procreate on our own. According to Ellen, nothing compares with being able to draw from a live subject, but photography often plays an important role. Adding Procreate to photography can be invaluable to create layouts efficiently, especially when tackling a complex or multi-part subject. Ellen will walk you through a project she completed recently, and show how you can quickly select, move, re-scale elements in a layout to use as a guide for a finished painting.

Ellen highly recommends downloading Procreate to your iPad ahead of our session. Considering how useful the application can be, the cost is minimal, $13. (If you already have Adobe Fresco, that offers similar tools. She has not come across other apps that she would recommend because they lack some of the essential tools.) You have to download the app from an iPad. Procreate isn't usable on a laptop, so it doesn't show up in the App Store, even if you specify "iPad and iPhone apps" when you search on your laptop. If you search from an iPhone, it will only show you Procreate Pocket, which would probably be maddening to try to use for our purposes.

Ellen's work can be seen on her website, www.ellenblonder.com.

iPhone Photography for Botanical Illustration

with Yoni Mayeri

Saturday, February 28, 2026 at 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM via ZOOM

Discover how to photograph botanical subjects and transform them into compelling, high-quality images using the powerful camera you already carry with you. Smartphones are the most important cameras of our time—used for everything from documenting daily life and current events to creating art, supporting businesses, and capturing reference images for botanical illustration.

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to confidently photograph botanical subjects with your iPhone and refine those images for use in your illustration practice. We’ll explore the iPhone’s camera and Photos apps in depth, including often-overlooked features that significantly improve sharpness, tonal range, and fine detail. You’ll learn where key settings are located, how to adjust system and camera controls, and how to use them effectively for consistent, high-quality results. Time permitting, we’ll also cover basic editing techniques to enhance and fine-tune your images directly on your iPhone.

This workshop is designed for all skill levels. Yoni’s step-by-step demonstrations are easy to follow, with live screen sharing throughout the session so you can see exactly what’s happening on her iPhone in real time. An iPhone 11 or newer is recommended, but all iPhone models are welcome.

All registered participants will receive downloadable handouts with tips, resources, and practical reference materials after the workshop.

THIS PRESENTATION WILL NOT BE RECORDED.

Click here for more information on Yoni.

NCalSBA Sketchbook Swap Project Round 3 Invitation

Calling all botanical “sketchers” interested in an exciting yet low-stress opportunity to share with other artists, try new mediums, get inspiration and end up with a one of a kind collaborative art piece.

Our first NCalSBA Sketchbook Exchange Project was a success with over 35 sketchbooks.

Deadline for acceptance in this third round of the Sketchbook Swap Project will be December 15, 2025. The first exchange of books will occur on February 1, 2026 allowing participating artists 6 weeks to order or make the journals, create the title page and illustration and pass on their journals to the next participant. We expect the project to last about 1 year.

How do I join the project?

Send an email to Jenny Kennedy at jendupen@gmail.com by December 15, 2025 expressing your interest. Include your full contact information with mailing address and phone contact and indicate if your phone will accept text messages.

All NCalSBA artists are welcome to participate in this project.

For more information you can click the following documents:

NCalSBA Sketchbook Swap Project Artist Agreement

NCalSBA Sketchbook Swap Project Round 3 Invitation

NCalSBA Sketchbook Swap Project Instructions to Artist