
Presented here is a collection of illustrations made using Procreate on an iPad. I do not typically participate in challenges, but I had been thinking about making a series of works on native plants, so when California Native Plant Society presented their art challenge it seemed like a perfect opportunity. The challenge itself was that every day for two weeks each person would create a work of art inspired by California native plants.

As I had never really done a challenge before this I decided the best way to handle it was to do all the planning ahead of time. I developed the visual style, selected the colors, and made a list of plants I was interested in drawing with a second list of alternates in case I got stuck or simply was not feeling what was on my list. This ended up working out very well because a few days into this I came down with the worst cold of my life that lasted for the remainder of the two-week project and then some. Needless to say I was very grateful for my pre-planning and decision to keep these simple.

What was extra special about this project was that while working on it, I was preparing to move to a small town in the foothills of Los Angeles. One of the main reasons why we wanted to move there was because of the abundant hiking trails, so using the CNPS's plant search tool I was able to explore my new neighborhood and learn about who lived there before getting to meet all these new floral friends a month later. The focus for this project narrowed down from California native plants to native plants of The Angeles Forest to native plants that are along a specific trail (which is featured in the photos here).



I have turned two of the drawings into a few shirts for family and a couple of one-off greeting cards. My eventual plan is to work with a local printer who focuses on environmentally friendly printing practices and make a greeting card pack featuring four images. One exciting part of this whole experience was having the Spotted Humboldt's Lily drawing featured in CNPS's quarterly magazine Flora, they even sent over an extra copy for my grandma.
