Friday, January 4, 2008

New Year, new projects...

This year has been so busy, wrapping up a variety of projects having little to do with orchid painting, tho definitely with their conservation. I hope to start in earnest my series of native orchid paintings this year. Climate change, loss of habitat through real estate development, the lowering of water levels in Lake Michigan and other areas around the Great Lakes, have all played their part in altering the ecology of the sites where our native orchids are trying to hang on for dear life.

Hopefully by producing this series of paintings and researching the efforts of those many people who have helped save habitat for orchids and other threatened native species I can help promote awareness of these beautiful plants and the need to save them while we can.

On a personal note, my son Ian turned twenty the other day. : ) I am no longer the mother of a teenager, and instead the mother of an amazing young man. Wish he would help me save orchids! : ) He's too busy, tho, helping people save (or recover) the data on their computers...

Oh, the other projects? The Chicago Wilderness Fieldbooks, subtitled 'a Passport to Discover Nature's Hidden Treasures.' I completed about seventy pen and ink illustrations for self-guided nature journals, meant to be part of the new national initiative called 'No Child Left Inside'. Get those kids away from their TVs and computers and Blackberries! Enough already! : ) Get 'em outdoors to play!