Framing Nature

Highlighting a naturalist or botanical illustration print with a French mat is an artisanal and historical method of framing the work. This reproduction of a naturalist drawing of a lizard is one of a small group. Read on for the back story.

         (Texas Parks and Wildlife)

This prehistoric looking creature is the Texas Horned Lizard or Horny Toad, the state reptile of Texas. The San Antonio Zoo Center for Conservation and Research is working in conjunction with Texas Hill Country landowners to place zoo hatched lizards and restore the threatened population of Texas Horned Lizard to one of its natural habitats. This is fascinating to me as much of my artwork and design is based in studies of nature.

When my husband was a young boy playing outside in Texas City, he frequently encountered Texas Horned Lizards in the wild. They had yet to become a protected species and he, being a naturally curious boy, would gently touch a horny toad resting in the blazing sun of summer. He told me when he touched the horny toad it would flatten itself down considerably.

This pewter replica is one he bought himself after we moved here to the Texas Hill Country. He had previously had a bronze Texas Horned Lizard made by Texas Hill Country jeweler, James Avery, which he kept on his desk. Sadly, it was lost during our move.

The picture above is Maria Sibylla Merian, a Dutch naturalist explorer of the 1800’s, who studied and drew the insects of Surinam in their native environment. Through her observations and drawings published in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium she documented the phenomena of metamorphosis. She was a naturalist, a naturalist illustrator, and a pioneer. (Loske, K. S.: Maria Sibylla Merian: Insects of Surinam: Taschen)

What is a naturalist? In The Essex Serpent,(Sarah Perry) a novel placed in the late 1800’s, we are introduced to Cora Seaborne, an amateur naturalist who has notebooks “…written in a small clear script, the margins covered, the pages interleaved with pressed stems of weeds and grasses, and a map of a section of coastline marked with red ink. A spill of papers lay all around her and she’d fallen asleep clutching her Dorset ammonite.”

A character in the film Master and Commander describes Dr. Stephen Maturin’s interest in natural history, saying, “You show him a beast, he’ll tell you what it’s thinking.” (film based on the series of books by Patrick O’Brian). Captain Jack Aubrey describes Maturin’s interest in nature as a “d…. hobby,” as this was a popular pastime during the Victorian era.

Coincidentally, at the same time the Texas Horned Lizards were hatching in the San Antonio Zoo an article on a naturalist illustrator from the 18^th-19^th centuries, Sarah Stone, was published in The World of Interiors. (Alice Inggs, July 7, 2023)

The article piqued my curiosity and an online search led to this book from the Natural History Museum, London’s Art and Nature series. (Jackson, C.E.: Sarah Stone: Natural Curiosities from the New Worlds). Sarah Stone, the daughter of a fan painter, began working for Sir Ashton Lever, painting objects in his private museum, the Leverian Museum.

At the top is Sarah Stone’s watercolor of a Gorgonian coral. Below it is our dried Gorgonian in a stand made of a vintage inkwell. We “discovered” it in Galveston, Texas at Murdock’s, a not to be missed beachside shop and a place to sit and view the waves.

Many of Sarah Stone’s watercolors were of specimens and artifacts collected by sailors and naturalists during British expeditions (including those of Captain Cook) to Australia, America, Africa, and the Far East. Some may be the only record of creatures now extinct.

At the top is Sarah Stone’s watercolor of a Bear’s Paw Clam. Under it is a print of my etching of an angel wing clam; one of two dozen we discovered washed up on West Beach, Galveston, Texas on Christmas Eve in 2004.

In 1789 Sarah Stone was hired to paint natural history specimens collected in Australia by naturalist John White for his Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales. She painted from the skins of the animals, many of which were the first of their kind to be seen outside the territory.

You may best remember Beatrix Potter as the author of the Peter Rabbit series of children’s books.

She also painted and drew her pet lizard, Judy.

Note under photos Bilclough, A., Ed.: Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature: Rizzoli/V&A Publishing

Before becoming a successful author of children’s books, Beatrix Potter collected and drew fungi. She was especially interested in mushrooms and carried on a lively correspondence and exchange of fungi with another naturalist, Charlie McIntosh. (Lear, L. Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature: NY: St. Martin’s Press).

My continued interest in Sarah Stone led me to a website where reproduction prints of some of her works could be purchased. These are the four small prints I ordered to give to my husband as a gift.

Each image was a slightly different size, so it was not possible to reuse the mats that were already in the frames we had available. Using a piece of heavy weight, textured art paper, I cut my own mat. It seemed to be lacking something. A search online revealed a technique called a French picture mat where a mat is embellished with strips of gilded or marbleized paper, fine ink borders, and/or painted borders.

A few years ago I had experimented with a simple form of the technique with a print of several insects. We wanted a series of prints, rather than one and so, cut and mounted them, drew the line around them with a gold marker, and then had them framed separately.

Making a test strip helped me determine how the gold Winsor and Newton ink would flow from my calligraphy pen and how the Micron fine tip pen would work to create the lines.

The ink lines were drawn first in pencil and then inked against a metal, cork-backed ruler. The gold ink was filled in using a calligraphy pen dipped in Winsor and Newton ink.

The completed mat on the Chamelelon print, framed and ready to hang!

My husband loved the lizard prints! They are particularly appropriate here in the Texas Hill Country as we have some beautiful lizards like the common spotted whiptails which is both spotted and striped. They are not afraid of people and have, on occasion, run along beside me as I walk the land!

We have also located another brass James Avery Texas Horned Lizard to we are fully content!

Observing, documenting, and wondering at nature provides us with inspiration and much happiness!