Botanical Illustration III: Advanced Techniques

I enjoyed reading all the different ways we were pulled to botanical illustration.  Like others, many factors have contributed to the evolution of my interest in botanical illustration.  I grew up in an area (the rural, western part of New Jersey) full of interesting plants.  In my childhood and early tween years, I spent nearly everyday outdoors exploring the weeds and trees and wildflowers on our property and the flowers and shrubs in my parent's flower beds.  I walked through a cornfield to get to my best friend's house, and she and I spent time in cow pastures and along rural streams.  When I later became a biologist, illustration was a necessary part of sharing one's work, but I studied aquatic invertebrates, although I did make a bit of a hobby of identifying wildflowers while hiking and developed a fondness for mosses and lichens. Later, working at the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian, I was exposed to the exquisite work of 18th century scientists (and also some very good 20th century contemporaries' illustrations).  It was probably then that the seed was planted in me.  

It wasn't until retirement that I finally had the time to study botanical illustration and, luckily, found this series of courses.  I hope to find a way to incorporate botanical illustration into interdisciplinary work (writing, art, science).