Meet the Correspondents - Nate Beccue



My name is Nate Beccue and I am honored to be included in this group - thank you for the invitation Kate!  I grew up in East Central Illinois along the Sangamon River –the place where I found my love of nature.  My mother, mother-in-law and now brother are all art teachers so I have quite a bit of art influence in my life but no formal art education.  I have a bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources and a master’s degree in Forest Ecology from the University of Illinois and I work as a Natural Areas Manager at the Holden Arboretum in Northeastern Ohio. 

Birders like to talk about their “spark bird” the one that ignited a passion for birding, I like to say that I had a “spark subject” that started a passion for nature illustration.  In grad school I was documenting some tree falls in the woods and saw an Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra) that was just breaking bud, I don’t know if it was the colors or the dynamics of the opening leaves but I had to draw it.   I bought some Crayola colored pencils and got started.



My "spark"

My favorite subject to draw in detail are winter twigs of woody plants – I am amazed by the variety of colors in a twig, the details of a bud, the imperfections and their causes and then the dynamics of a twig coming to life each spring.  In addition to twigs you will find that I will draw anything I find in the woods especially botanical and I am starting to gain more interest and confidence in drawing birds.  A few years ago I started carrying a field notebook for fast sketches and notes of things that I see on a daily basis working in the woods.  I recently switched from Crayola colored pencils to Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and almost always draw on Bristol board or in my notebook.  I own watercolor, oil and acrylic paint and will also play with that stuff every once in a while.  If you would like to take a look through my work please visit at www.buroakbotanicals.blogspot.com.

Enough of an introduction – here is a page from my notebook from earlier in the week - a little look at some of the botanical activity where I stopped for lunch on Tuesday.  Lunch was adjacent to a slip above the East Branch of the Chagrin River and the first thing to catch my eye were the undersides of hundreds of round-leaved ragwort (Packera obovata), a brilliant violet anytime of year but especially striking in February.  Next I noticed some young sedges, their exposed roots barely clinging to the eroding slope.  Carex (sedges) is a difficult genus to master, but in this part of the world there are only a few sedges with leaves this wide and the pale bases of the leaves give this one away as C. platyphylla.  Much more common here, and abundant to my right on the wooded hillside, is C. plantaginea it is given away by the red/maroon bases of leaves.  And making their 2012 debut all over the hillside is wild leek aka ramps (Allium tricoccum) a solid two weeks ahead of schedule based on my notes.  As always a great day to be in the woods!

After the rain - Maree

All was silent as before -
All silent save the dripping rain.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We've had some beautiful rain to end the season - for the past couple of weeks we've had heavy afternoon showers virtually every day and the ground is so saturated that puddles collect next to all the farm roads. We've had this before, with rains carrying on well into May and even June, which is peculiar for us, as Gauteng (South Africa) is a summer rainfall area.

Early Signs of Spring

The Redbuds started blooming 2 weeks early this year. The Red Maples and Yellow Jessamine started popping in late January and the other day I saw a Dogwood in bloom!

We've had a mild winter but goodness, what's the rush here?

insects and beetles

For Christmas I was given a box of feathers, leaves, a nest, seed pods and a few beetles. In the last few days I have finally put aside time to draw some of them (in watercolour pencil in my Moleskine watercolour sketchbook) .

Unfortunately I am unable to provide very much technical information about them.I can tell you they were collected in Toowoomba, Queensland,Australia, probably along suburban footpaths, waterbird habitat or my mothers backyard !

This top page is what I always called a Stag Beetle. I have found out they are part of Rhinocerous Beetle family which covers many similar looking beetles with varying degrees of spiky and spiny features.




This second page has a few mysterious small black and brown insects. I know the highly un-technical name of the "click beetle" (middle left) which (when we were children) we used to put our finger on their back they would click and jump . The green cicada is also a familiar insect . Maybe the one above it is a Christmas beetle ???

I really enjoyed drawing ( or is it painting?) these. I also wanted to write all over it with notes. I have kept most of the beetles and bugs to draw again another day....

Sandy Williams -- Tracks in the Snow

I often wonder what my dog senses on our walks out in the open fields.  I feel that I'm at such a disadvantage, with only my human eyes to scan the landscape.  But all that changes when it snows and all the visitors leave behind the tracks that give away their presence.  This sketch was done with a crow quill pen and Higgins ink along with Derwent and Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils.  The words were written with Noodler's Lexington gray ink and the pen they give away for free when you purchase the ink.

Cactus Monday - Blooming Agave

Cactus Monday - Blooming Agave, a photo by Teri DC on Flickr.

A few years back our neighbor had a blooming agave and it was fun to watch the bloom stem grow and blossom. The desert has so many wonderful surprises to share.

Happy Cactus Monday.

Cedrus deodara - Himalayan cedar

Cedrus deodara is a species of cedar native to the western Himalays in eastern Afghanistan. It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching 40-50 m tall. the leaves are medle-like, mostly 2,5 - 5 cm long.
The female cones are barrel-shaped, 7-13 cm long and 5-9 cm broad, and disintegrate when mature to relase the winged seeds.
It was imported in Europe as ornamental plant since 1800.

I found pine cone and branch in Subiaco, near Roma. The branches were on the ground because of snow in recent days.

Angela Maria Russo watercolour on Magnani sketchbook