A quick bit of video here for those who like to watch these things: a pen and ink drawing in progress in the rainforest of Barro Colorado Island, Panama. I sat at the water’s edge for an afternoon, drawing a grand tree with my trusty rapidograph. You will hear the sound of a motor launch pulling out from the dock nearby and faintly, at the end of the clip, a Chestnut-backed antbird calling up the hill in the deep forest.

During the hours I worked on this drawing, a large active troupe of Spider monkeys clambered into the trees overhead and dropped branches and fruit as they fed and played with their babies, and at one point I turned around to see an adult monkey perched right above me, watching over my shoulder with polite interest as the drawing took shape on the paper.