“The natural world is an antidepressant.
If you soak it in, you live a better life.”
When Peggy Macnamara was a young mother of five children, she didn’t relinquish her art practice. Each morning she left her house and drove straight to the nearest natural history museum. With sketchpad and color pencils, she would sit for five hours straight in front of finely-made artifacts. Through deep observation and relentless repetition her compositions became an interesting hybrid of watercolor that adhere to factual detail while also capturing the illusive play of light and sky. They’re scientifically accurate, yes—but they’re also evocative.
Peggy’s work embodies the connection between art and science. With an art studio located in the zoology wing of the Field, she has access both to the museum’s collection and to its world-renowned research scientists. She’s traveled with the scientists to Madagascar, and she once painted a fish that became a gift to the President of Peru. “The work ethic of the scientist is really pure,” Peggy says. “There’s this kind of persistence that I admire.”
WHAT TO DO IF YOU LIKE PEGGY’S ARTWORK AND WANT TO SEE MORE
Visit Peggy’s show at the Field Museum: Peregrine Returns. It’s up until June 30, 2018. Buy her books, either at the Field Museum bookshop, the local book store of your choice, or on Amazon. You can also inquire about purchasing original artwork through her website.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU WANT TO LEARN TO DRAW AND PAINT LIKE PEGGY
Take Peggy’s one-week class at Ox-Bow, an artist’s residency affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. While spending a week in July in Saugatuck, Michigan, you can take “Nature Illustration in Watercolor” with Peggy. If you’re a degree student at the School of the Art Institute, you can take other classes from her at the School’s downtown Chicago campus.
Or if you’re nowhere near Michigan, do what Peggy did and teach yourself by observing finely made things and drawing them. Try learning from a book Peggy co-authored, Painting Wildlife in Watercolor. You might also want to work your way through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. Or sign up for a class at your local community art center. If you’re in Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center offers terrific classes.
OBJECTS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST
A collecting vial, one of the parting gifts Peggy gave to her students.
A painting Peggy made of caddisfly nests. A type of insect, caddisflies create silken cases decorated with bits of shell and stone.