Ancient Polinators with Robin Carlson - Video Recording

Ancient Pollinators with Robin Carlson

Robin Lee Carlson

Bees have developed a particularly close relationship with flowers, but they were not the first pollinators. Often less showy than bees, but no less fascinating, the earliest pollinators were beetles and flies.

In this workshop, we will start with an overview of ancient pollinators, and then focus on one beetle and one fly pollinator, to explore how flowers attract these insects and how pollinators and flowers interact. We’ll draw western skunk cabbage and its rove beetle pollinators, and California pipevine with its tiny gnat pollinators. We will work in ink, watercolor, and colored pencil. At the end of each session, there will be time to ask questions and share your work and insights.

Robin Lee Carlson is a natural science illustrator and the author of The Cold Canyon Fire Journals. She builds careful observations of the natural world into deeper commentary on ecology and climate change, and her work centers on field sketching ecoreportage, living documentation of the ever-accelerating transformation of ecosystems by human activity. Her work has also appeared in The Common, the literary journal of Amherst College, and in Arnoldia, the magazine of the Harvard University Arboretum. She teaches online and in-person workshops that combine drawing, painting, and natural history.Robin is one of the 2024 recipients of the Fireline Fellowship, part of the Long-Term Ecological Reflections Program in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.https://robinleecarlson.com/https://www.instagram.com/anthropocenesketchbook/