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Drawing You Outside - Art In Nature

Christine Forni - Drawing you Outside Sat. Sept 14th 3:00-5:00

Kristina Isabelle Dance and Tryon Farm Institute present Art In Nature and Drawing you Outside, a mobile outdoor drawing room for participants to explore nature and the landscape though handmade charcoal.  All ages and experience are welcome.   Saturday September 14th from 3:00 - 5:00Artist Salon Talk to follow workshop at 5:00.   Art supplies will be provided.  Wear comfortable shoes as we will be walking.   

Suggested donations accepted $10 adults / $5 kids.  Meet at the Tryon Farm Barn at 1500 Tryon Road, Michigan City, IN. 

“Drawing You Outside” is a collaboration project created by a visual artist and film maker, Christine and James Forni. The project creates a mobile outdoor open drawing room for participants to survey the view of the landscape and the nature surrounding them. 


Through the slow art of mark making on paper participants gain a connection to being outside and retain a tactile memory from drawing; this analog process of observation is an antidote to the harried life many people lead absorbed in digital indoor worlds, or experiencing virtual realities through lenses of technology.  Through this process of drawing outside we can experience beauty, empathy and understanding for the environment outside.  
This program serves as a restorative alternative to large amounts of time we spend detached from the outdoors. Connectedness with nature is positively linked with environmental responsible behavior and multiple variables supporting human well-being, including happiness.

This drawing exercise begins with a walk in the woods. The participants will be encouraged to write their about their experience along the walk such as the sounds, the smell, and they will be guided to see how light interacts and moves through nature. We will observe through the lens of drawing at two specific sites in nature to draw for an hour at each site.


Christine Forni’s work is based on the many ways light interacts with the physical world. She’s a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, alternative photography, drawing, and installation. Forni exhibited at venues such as Ueno Royal Japanese Art Museum, DeCordova Sculpture Museum, Piedmont’s Museo di Scienze Naturali to Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.

 Forni, a midwestern artist, lives in Chicago. In 2015, she uprooted her life to study abroad in Paris. While overseas she exhibited photograms at Academia Romana and was invited as a guest speaker to the international physicists conference on Constructal Law in Bucharest. Forni’s landscape installation began in Paris during an artist residency at École du Breuil d’Horticulture where she researched Parisian gardener’s organization of native and non-native plants collected from around the world. Concurrently she had a residency at Muséum National d’Historie Naturelle there she documented and drew details of bones specimen similarities amassed by naturalist during the colonial exploration period. 

 Born in Cleveland, she spent her younger years in the industrial cities of Pittsburgh and Detroit while living next to a forest preserve. She helped her grandmother create a living plant specimen collection overtaking their formal dining room; with her grandfather she planted vegetables and grafted trees in their victory garden to feed the family. Forni experienced a dichotomy of industrial backdrops along with time spent around nature and plants in domestic settings - these layered alternate environments inspired a fascination around human interpretations and interactions within the natural world informing Forni’s practice today.

Christine Forni’s work is based on the many ways light interacts with the physical world. She’s a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, alternative photography, drawing, and installation. Forni exhibited at venues such as Ueno Royal Japanese Art Museum, DeCordova Sculpture Museum, Piedmont’s Museo di Scienze Naturali to Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art.

         Forni, a midwestern artist, lives in Chicago. In 2015, she uprooted her life to study abroad in Paris. While overseas she exhibited photograms at Academia Romana and was invited as a guest speaker to the international physicists conference on Constructal Law in Bucharest. Forni’s landscape installation began in Paris during an artist residency at École du Breuil d’Horticulture where she researched Parisian gardener’s organization of native and non-native plants collected from around the world. Concurrently she had a residency at Muséum National d’Historie Naturelle there she documented and drew details of bones specimen similarities amassed by naturalist during the colonial exploration period. 

          Born in Cleveland, she spent her younger years in the industrial cities of Pittsburgh and Detroit while living next to a forest preserve. She helped her grandmother create a living plant specimen collection overtaking their formal dining room; with her grandfather she planted vegetables and grafted trees in their victory garden to feed the family. Forni experienced a dichotomy of industrial backdrops along with time spent around nature and plants in domestic settings - these layered alternate environments inspired a fascination around human interpretations and interactions within the natural world informing Forni’s practice today.


Kim Beck is a Tryon Farm resident and figurative painter while continuing to add to my oeuvre of avian subjects, particularly birds of the Midwest.  I am passionate about the challenges associated with depicting these subjects.  My hope is to inspire others to feel the awe and reverence I feel for the diversity and beauty of individuals and the natural world we encounter daily, and to express  through my paintings the stories I encounter that might also have meaning to others.


Dolores Diaz is Botanical artist with a passion for sustainability and conservation.  In 2016 her work was juried into the 15th International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Scientific Illustration at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University.  She teaches observational drawing, Outdoor sketching and Nature Journaling and continues to exhibit locally, nationally and internationally. 


Earlier Event: September 13
Mr. Canoe - Art In Nature