In the second annual New York Botanical Gardens' "Summer in Coastal Maine" partnership with Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, internationally renowned botanical artist Dick Rauh, a NYBG art instructor, will present a unique, week-long drawing workshop at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens from Monday to Friday, August 5 to 9.

The course, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, will be conducted both outdoors amid spectacular gardens and native landscapes, and indoors in the well-lit, air-conditioned Bosarge Family Education Center.

During the five days of instruction, Rauh will help his students develop the ability to study and capture the natural world by drawing the native trees, shrubs, ferns, and flowers of Maine. Each day's class will begin with a discussion of subjects including plant architecture, perspective and composition. Then everyone will go outdoors to draw.

Emphasis is on the eye-to-hand style of rendering, using technical pens and sketchbooks. Rauh will help his students apply observational skills and sketching techniques, including contour drawing, to the broader field of nature sketching. Each participant will complete several drawings during the week.

Dick Rauh earned a doctorate in plant sciences in 2001 from the City University of New York to better inform his illustration techniques. He is the illustrator of Carol Levine's classic Guide to Wildflowers in Winter, a work which piqued his interest in the dry fruits and other remnants of out-of-season natives, which he paints in enlarged versions to demonstrate their architecture.

A collection of this work received a gold medal from the Royal Horticultural Society and a best-in-show award. He is a fellow of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society.

"Tree Sketches," an exhibit of Rauh's drawings of trees, will be on view in the Education Center lobby from August 1-28.

Delicious lunches from the Kitchen Garden Café at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens are included in the five-day course tuition fee of $495 for members of either CMBG or NYBG or $550 for nonmembers. Registration and a list of materials participants should bring to the class are available through the New York Botanical Garden, either at www.nybg.org or by phone at 718-817-8747.

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is located off Barters Island Road in Boothbay, just over a mile from the Boothbay common. To learn more about CMBG, visit www.mainegardens.org.