In Celebration of my two wildlife paintings presently on exhibit at the United States Botanic Garden, DC, I have been featured on the City Creatures Blog. There you will find three of my paintings and writing on Why I Paint City Creatures. The two paintings that are on exhibit in DC are: Wildlife Comes to Lake Shore Drive and Rogers Park Dunes Restoration and Piping Plover, watercolor and watercolor pencil. They both include endangered species and have been reproduced in the gardens to about 72 inches, and will be on exhibit through November 2014.
My painting Wildlife Comes to Lake Shore Drive will also be featured in the forthcoming book City Creatures: Animal Encounters in the Chicago Wilderness, Editors Gavin Van Horn and Dave Aftandilian; Assistant Editors for Art Lisa Roberts; and Assistant Editor for Poetry: James Ballowe. University of Chicago Press, 2015.
I’m sending a heartfelt thank you out to Gavin Van Horn for featuring this blog post and all his help with it! I’m including the beginning of the post here, and I invite you to visit the City Creatures blog to view the entire article: http://bit.ly/1r5vmo1
For 20 years, my artistic journey has been intertwined with city creatures. My watercolor paintings feature local and global flora and fauna, both common and endangered. Birds especially capture my attention—from devious red-winged blackbirds in Millennium Park to golden finches feeding on my sunflowers and skittish sparrows who gobble up the tiny seeds that fall from river birch trees. I’ve discovered that sparrows’ melodious songs soothe and keep me centered, and it was their wonderful chirping that greeted me on a cold spring day after our very long 2014 Chicago winter.
Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, & Writing 