Art Chowder January | February, Issue 25 | Page 24

I
also had a January term class in landscape
art taught by a biology professor. We could use
the medium we wanted; I chose watercolor.
I enjoy the paint, the paper, and learning to
predict (if not control) what the paint will
do. Watercolor is still the medium in which I feel
most at home.
Art Chowder: For us non-artists, please explain
the term “expressive lines.”
L. Bjorneby: Rather than take a pencil and
draw a line with steady and even pressure, you
would press harder or lighter so you can see the
movement of the artist’s hand in the line.
Until I took Schwidder’s class I’d been using a
rapidograph which is the opposite of expressive
line because it gives you precisely the same
width of line every time. So Schwidder told me
he wanted to see an expressive line from me
and it influenced everything including my brush
strokes. It’s not just getting it where you want
but showing that there’s some feeling in the line.
Art Chowder: You graduated college with
a bachelor of arts in biology. Does your
understanding of biology help with your art?
L. Bjorneby: My art is rooted in the natural
world, whether I’m painting a native plant or a
landscape with trees and shrubs.  My training
in biology absolutely informs what I see and
choose to paint, and the way I depict it.  
Art Chowder: Does it cause you to add or
delete detail from your paintings?
L. Bjorneby: A little bit of both.
I briefly toyed with becoming a scientific
illustrator. I read books on it and actually got
some instruction from an illustrator. And that,
of course, is full detail, very, very careful work
where it’s important to make every part visible.
If the flower has five petals you have to paint
five petals. You have to make sure to render the
leaves and inner parts of the flower accurately
so someone can look at the picture and identify
the flower from that.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE