Field Illustration
with Josh Dihle
PAINTING & DRAWING 678 001 | 1.5 credits | $100 lab fee
August 3–9, 2025
Inspired by the landscape and wildlife of Ox-Bow, this class invites students to develop an illustrative portfolio in pencil, ink, watercolor, and gouache. Students will build effective and inventive travel easels to explore campus and, working both outside and in the studio, will develop a personal approach to rendering and responding to the plants and animals that call Ox-Bow home. Demonstrations will cover methods for effective color mixing and composing in the field as well as techniques for recreating botanical structure, basic animal anatomy, and biological textures including bark, shell, and feathers. We will review the work of John James Audubon, Walton Ford, Evelyn Statsinger, and Kiki Smith and students will carry a naturalist pocket guide for reference. Onsite and studio drawing assignments will be accompanied by readings and discussions of naturalist poetry by Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, and Sharon Olds. Assignments will challenge students to notice the nuance in nature and will include a bug hunt, with invertebrates sketched in graphite, and a watercolor assignment that gives visual expression to a work of poetry or literature. Students will be encouraged to propose a final project inspired by their observations.
Josh Dihle, Mrs. Toast, 2024, found objects and casein on carved basswood, 18 x 14 x 2 in.
Josh Dihle (he/him) With a hand for detail and an eye on the natural world, Dihle blends painting, carving, and drawing to open visionary portals into the heart. He is the co-founder of experimental art platforms Color Club and Barely Fair and teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also created The Sugar Hole, an ice cream shop staffed by puppets. Solo exhibitions include M+B,Los Angeles; Andrew Rafacz, Chicago; 4th Ward Project Space Chicago; McAninch Arts Center, Chicago; and Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago; Dihle's work has been exhibited in group shows nationally and internationally, including Gaa Gallery, New York; MASSIMODECARLO Vspace,Milan, Italy; University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois; Essex Flowers Gallery, New York; Ruschman, Mexico City, Mexico; and Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy. His work and curatorial projects have been written about in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, New City, Artspace, The Washington Post, and The Art Newspaper, among others. Dihle lives and works in Chicago.