Field Trip to the Chicago Field Museum

Peggy MacNamara has been the Artist-in-Residence at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History since 1990. She has held the position of an Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 2001. According to her biography, she has traveled with Field Museum scientists all over the world to paint nature and illustrate conservation efforts. She has published five books in collaboration with museum scientists and two children’s books.

On Saturday, March 2, 2024, a group of Reed-Turner Botanical Artists members had the opportunity to visit with her in her studio on the third floor of the Field Museum, sketch birds on the main floor of the Field Museum, and learn about her unique and daring style of watercolor paintings.

The third floor of the field museum houses additional collections not seen on the main floors, research libraries, offices, and conference rooms. Peggy’s studio is a warehouse of research on animals, a collection of specimens borrowed from different departments, and a selection of her bold and colorful paintings. On a daily basis, Peggy travels through the museum and sets up her chair and supplies at various locations to paint the items in the museums vast collection. She encourages artist to do the same.

Peggy McNamara with one of her paintings (Photo courtesy of Christina Lovering)

Peggy escorted the Reed-Turner group to the bird specimines on the firsts floor. Members began to sketch into sketchbooks or onto the Lanaquarelle paper - the paper of choice for Peggy MacNamara. Daily visitors to the Field Museum continued on their way through the museum collection barely noticing the Reed-Turner members sitting on the floor or benches sketching in front of the cases holding both familiar and exotic birds.

Peggy MacNamara’s studio at the Field Museum (Photo courtesy of Christina Lovering)

After spending more than an hour on the main level of the museum, we had the opportunity to take our sketches to the next level. Back up to the third, the group gathered in the conference room to hear Peggy describe her watercolor techniques as she showed slides of what appeared to be haphazard and reckless watercolor practices. After accurately sketching the subject from the taxidermy specimen and carefully rendering the color and detail, Peggy then splashes the canvas with cups of bright colors. She goes back into the painting and renders more details. She may repeat this process many time. Through this chaos, she captures the depth of color that reflects off a birds feathers or a crocodiles skin while maintaining the accuracy portrait of the bird, mammal, reptile or insect.

Before leaving, the Reed-Turner group was able to see the display of birds to be preserved. While on the third floor, the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM), a group affiliated with the Field Museum were having an event. CBCM is a volunteer conservation project dedicated to the protection of migratory birds through rescue, advocacy and outreach. We were able to observe the collection of birds that unfortunately come to the Field Museum through this group. Birds that survive a window collision with minor injuries are taken to a rehabilitation shelter, while those that do not survive come to the museum. A reminder of the need for conservation of our fragile ecosystems even in the city by turning off lights during migration and marking windows.

Hawk, owls, thrushes, woodpeckers are just some birds that migrate through Chicago