NCalSBA ACTIVITIES

Sketch Day at Tilden Regional Park Botanic Garden

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

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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

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

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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. Please take a moment and RSVP here today.

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Please click here to register.

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.

Click here to register.



iPhone Photography for Botanical Illustration

with Yoni Mayeri

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

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.

Click here to register for the talk.

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