The Crow King Illustration
Crows famously collect treasure and shiny objects. The objects in this illustration are based on actual objects collected from crows.
Little Red Wolf Illustration
Red wolves are critically endangered with just a small population remaining in the wild. “Little Red Wolf” turns “Little Red Riding Hood” on it’s head and considers who the real villain is. Little wolf is taking food to her grandmother. Wolves are one of the few species that will feed and protect injured and elderly pack members. But to get there she must journey through the woods and try to avoid the hunter. (Who does not save the day in this story…)
Hibernation Illustration
Wood frogs, chipmunks and groundhogs hibernate in the snowy woods. From an activity book about winter.
Leave the Leaves Sample Illustrations
One side of the page is set up like a “cabinet of curiosities” while the rest of the page tells the story. The caterpillars, cocoons and chrysalis’ depicted in the story are shown in their adult form on the left.
Slumbering moths. Sleeping salamanders. Curious fireflies. Leafy pajamas. Don’t rake up the leaves in autumn, because underneath them is a whole other world! Explore this crucial ecosystem and learn why it’s so important to LEAVE THE LEAVES.
Wild Graffiti with Birdsy & Ant Sample Illustrations
Birdsy & Ant are street artists leaving their mark on the city with seeds. Humans don’t notice the plants growing all around them, they stomp on them or worse! Our tiny heroes help us to see beauty & blight in urban habitats.
Folktale Illustration: How the Beetle Got Her Colorful Coat
As soon as I saw the prompts for #folktaleweek I knew I wanted to make something for INK. I make a lot of inks from scratch from natural materials and had some incredible deep magenta pokeberry ink burning a hole in my pocket. This got me thinking about red pigments and cochineal in particular. Cochineal of course is made from the crushed shells of the cochineal beetle which has a long and storied history. So then I started researching folktales about beetles and came across the beautiful Brazilian tale of “How the Beetle got Her Colorful Coat.” It’s kind of a better version of the “Tortoise and the Hare”— ATU type 275 (Race between two animals)
In the story a rat is teasing a beetle for being slow and challenges her to a race. A wise parrot offers a new coat to whoever wins. The rat dawdles and assumes he has it in the bag only to get to the finish line and find the beetle waiting for him because she flew there. The beetle then picks out a colorful new coat of vibrant colors and accepts herself for who she is. I love the themes of self expression, self acceptance and cleverness.
So for this illustration, I wanted the little beetle to not only have a vibrant pokeberry ink coat, but she’s holding a star in her pincers so everyone can see her shine!!
Client: Taproot Magazine
Article: Genius Loci, The Magical Storytelling of Special Places by Jessie Lehson
Client: Plant Wonder Collective
A sampling of “plant of the month” illustrations made for the Plant Wonder Collective.
Rhythms of Nature Sample Pages
Watercolor project illustrations.
Client: Taproot Magazine
Article: The Phenology of Full Moons by Jessie Lehson
Countdown Illustrations
Whimsical watercolor animal homes
Client: Celebrate Seasonal Shifts
Logo design highlighting the changing seasons
Informational Graphic Illustration
Illustrations are all hand drawn.
Winter Solstice End Plate & Quote
I love book endplates and wanted to do something else with these, so I made a graphic with a quote from the book “Winter Solstice: Celebrating the Longest Night”.
From Farm to Flight: Illustrated Diagrams
