Liz Gill Neilson
Portland, Oregon, USA
Daily Drawings in Nature
After last year’s festival, I embarked upon a project of making daily drawings in nature over the course of several months. These small, 4”x4” pencil and colored pencil drawings are the result of that project. It was a bit of a beginner’s mind endeavor; I tried to place little importance on the outcome or success of each individual image, in favor of seeing how a cumulative visual language might start to develop a longer period of relationship with the outdoor, beyond human world. Most of these drawings were made in only two locations: Elk Rock Island, and Oaks Bottom Wildlife refuge, both adjacent to the Willamette River near Portland, Oregon. For the most part, they start in black and gray pencil, at the end of the winter, and color starts to come in as the spring progressed.
Liz is a branding and interactive designer, printmaker, and painter. She has degrees from Columbia University in NYC (Visual Arts) and Pacific Northwest College of Art (Communication Design). A founder of the Natural Resonance Festival, she also collaborates with her husband, composer Duncan Neilson, on their music project, Planetudes, and is the co-owner and Creative Director of The Beauty Shop: a branding agency based in Portland, Oregon.
