Orange You Glad It’s Halloween?
Botanical illustration workshop with colored pencils
🧡🍁
Celebrate Halloween—and the golden colors of fall—at Hoyt Arboretum! In this colorful nature-inspired workshop, we’ll explore the many shades of orange found in autumn leaves, from golden ochre and pumpkin to rust, copper, and deep orangey-reds.
Using colored pencils, you’ll learn simple techniques for layering, blending, shading, and building rich color. We’ll work from a hand-illustrated worksheet of a Bigleaf Maple leaf (Acer macrophyllum), one of the Pacific Northwest’s most spectacular fall trees.
Along the way, we’ll add a little Halloween spirit, looking at how shadows, dramatic color combinations, and unexpected details can give botanical art a slightly mysterious—or even spooky—feeling.
Weather permitting, we’ll spend part of the class in the Hoyt Arboretum classroom and the other half out among the trees, where you’ll choose a fall leaf and practice illustrating it on your own.
Bigleaf Maple worksheet we will use for this class, with demonstration of illustration with layered colored pencils.
No drawing experience necessary. Beginners welcome! A hand-illustrated template will be provided.
This workshop is taught by Molly Chidsey, a Portland-based illustrator with a background in environmental and sustainability advocacy. Workshop host: Hoyt Arboretum Friends.
Supplies
Please bring:
Sketchbook (unlined, for pencil sketching)
Colored pencils: yellow, red, orange, brown.
Recommended brands: Prismacolor, Artist’s Loft, Faber-Castell, or Blick Essentials set of 24.
Eraser
Cost & Registration
$65
Members of Hoyt Arboretum: $55
Class size is limited and pre-registration is required
Registration closes Friday, October 30th at 4:00pm
Register through the Hoyt Arboretum Friends website here.
Additional info
Metered parking available. Parking near the Arboretum in Washington Park is first-come, first-served. Please plan to arrive early to park.