STORY BEHIND THE ART OF Christiane Fashek

25th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Wave Hill

Tipsy

Ramalina sinensis, R. complanata, Teloschistes exilis, Physcia sp., Quercus fusiformus

“Tipsy” is the second piece in an ongoing series entitled “Lichens of Texas Hill Country,” which I drew for my New York Botanical Garden Botanical Art and Illustration certificate.

Finding specimens in the San Antonio, Texas area was as easy as finding a Texas live oak, a predominate tree in the Hill Country. I found this twig after a storm. Identifying what I had found and capturing the characteristics of the various lichen species would prove more challenging.

The first hurdle for me was deciding how to portray these tiny, irregular organisms accurately in colored pencil. My solution was tripartite: better magnification, microscopy and macrophotography; proportional enlargement, the accurate upscaling of each species; and rendering the work in color which allows for tone, texture, and getting the correct depth of field in a shallow amount of space.

I photographed the twig from several angles to better identify my specimens and to understand their intricacies, curvatures, depths, and shadows. The specimens were subject to magnification, raked lighting, and backlighting, in dry and wet states, during the intensive photo shoot. Eventually, I scaled up the silhouette of the chosen view, using the grid system. This specimen is a little shy of 1.25in high. I chose to enlarge it ten times to highlight characteristics of each lichen: the pseudocyphellae, the white, wart-like bumps on the thallus of the two Ramalina species; the finely intertwined branches of the fruticose Teloschistes; and the crevices of the foliose Physcia.

The scaled-up, gridded drawing seemed somewhat clinical to me, so I overlaid a “botanical cartoon,” essentially a blueprint for my rendering. I redrew the piece more expressively, using different line weights to call out edges and textures. I also annotated species and indicated shadows, directionality, depth and identifying characteristics.

Finally, it was time to bring the drawing to life with color. I gave the bottom skirting of Ramalina fronds a light tea wash. The Ramalina texture makes for interesting local color, undulating between direct light and shadow. The pseudocyphellae give texture and direction to the bumpy Ramalina in the foreground and the receding fronds at the top of the grouping. I rendered the Teloschistes twists in colored pencil and dry brush.

Dried strap lichens tend to contract along their natural curves. This lichen group seems to be in motion, twirling on its tilted axis of live oak. The grouping seems joyful, a bit tipsy.

I am an artist, not a lichenologist. My work was informed by the expertise of lichenologists James Lendemer of NYBG, The New York Botanical Garden, and CUNY, City University of New York; and Sheila Strawn of University of Central Oklahoma Lichen Herbarium, and Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria, who helped identify the species. Interestingly, the Physcia, which is the grey-blue foliose lichen directly attached to the upper part of the twig, may be one of two species. Some lichens can only be identified through chemical analysis. As it would destroy the specimen, I did not have it analyzed.

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