Sunday, June 19, 2005

GO WILD! Eastern Native WIldflowers by John Pitcher



John Pitcher-- naturalist and watercolor acryllic artist from Dorset, Vermont painted the best Native Wildflowers poster for Eastern US flora and Good Nature Publishing Co.

Here are 28 natives that range from Canada to Florida panhandle and west to the big river.

Ten of the little seed flickers live out west past the Palouse and into BC, and another ten have established residence here thanks to you know who.

( I have that second hand by Arthur Jacobson, noted author and plant genius that lives in Seattle. )

Good Nature design steps:

We start every poster with a species list. Usually twice as many species as we end up with in the final art.

Then I call up my clients who want to go in on a poster with me and ask them what they think.

At that point I am usually meditating with the artist-- working out timelines for getting a draft sketch put together. Meanwhile my clients has radioed via email their wishes, for color, season and artist's whim.

Most of the time we get the design right.

The new Native Wildflowers got the design right with this poster-- in terms of numbers of posters sold-- it has become a Good Nature bestseller. It will be the first poster we sell a million of-- a function of design meeting geography. There are lots of green thumbs in northeastern US, and teachers love them.

Of course it helped to have The New York Conservationist
and Boston Globe's Garden writer Carol Stocker
praise the art in their respective publications.