Here are the blogs I’ve written over the years.  Subjects range from step by step painting tutorials, to botanical anatomy, to current projects.

They appear in the order they’ve been written.  However, if you scroll down the page you’ll find they have also been organised into categories to make browsing a little more focused.

There are even some guest blogs in amongst.  I hope you enjoy them, and do please feel free to leave a comment.

Botanical Illustration: the achene

Posted on in botanical terms
Natural science illustration and natural history illustration need you to understand what your subject looks like, and he correct words needed to describe it.  Last week my blog was about fruit type definitions, inspired by some work I did for Rodale’s 21st Century Herbal by Michael Balick.  Whilst getting my head around the terminology of fruit types, I […] Read more

Botanical terms for fruit types

Posted on in botanical terms
Botanical and scientific illustration requires biological knowledge, and this is certainly true when it comes to painting botanical diagrams.  I recently did some illustrations for Rodale’s 21st Century Herbal by Michael Balick.  One of these was a diagram of fruit types.   Sources of information on Fruit type This got me thinking about how little I knew […] Read more

Natural History Illustration: Lansdscape

Posted on in Illustration techniques
Natural History illustration needs landscape painting skills Natural history illustration incorporates a wide range of techniques.  I realised about ten years ago that a desirable type of of natural science illustration was one that incorporated numerous species of plant and animal into one landscape.  This wetland landscape done for Natural England is an example. Working on […] Read more
Heterorrhina elegans beetle (Portrait)

Natural Science Illustration: Beetles

Posted on in Showcase of themed natural history illustrations
Natural history illustrators have passions for their subject matter, and we also tend to have “favourites.”  Without a shadow of a doubt, one of my favourite subjects to illustrate is insects.  I’m especially fond the beetles (Coleoptera). A Passion for Beetles Chrysochroa buqueti rugicollis I’m not sure where my passion for beetles sprung from.  I […] Read more

Natural History Illustration: A Week of Work

Posted on in Current projects and news
Natural science illustration work isn’t all botanical drawings and natural history illustration.  My work load this fortnight shows what I mean. A job’s come in from Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxon Wildlife trust.  It involves illustrating a map of their nature reserve at Hartslock.  The second part is illustrating a large landscape of the countryside, and the […] Read more

Illustrating a Bumble bee

Posted on in Zoological step by step
Bumble bee commission   I was commissioned to do a natural history illustration of a bumble bee for an interpretation board on flight.  The client is Anglezarke Dixon Associates, for Yorkshire Dales National Park.  They wanted a White tailed bumble bee (Bombus lucorum).  This would accompany my scientific illustrations of the pipistrelle bat and peacock […] Read more
Diagrams, pen and ink, top wash, colour wash, gardening, japan, bonsai garden,

Bonsai Diagrams for Dorling Kindersely/Penguin

Posted on in Current projects and news
Bonsai Project I’m currently doing a series of botanical illustrations for a book on Bonsai trees by Peter Warren for Dorling Kindersely/Penguin Books.  We’re concentrating on coloured diagrams of the trees. There may also be some step-by-step illustrations, and there’s talk of Japanese style “icons” too. A note on copyright Unusually for me, I’ve allowed DK/Penguin […] Read more
sketchbbok, sketchbook study, botanical illustration.

Natural History Illustration: Current projects

Posted on in Current projects and news
The last few weeks have been busy with botanical illustration projects, scientific illustrations, and diagrams.  There has also been the inevitable swirl of Christmas cards, school carol concerts, buying wrapping paper, and figuring out which relatives we’ll descend on, and when. Invented animal: Projects you worry about The most peculiar commission was for an invented […] Read more
leaf, leaf attachment, flowers, botany, botanical terms, leaves, veins, venation,

Botanical Illustration: Late flowering plants

Posted on in Showcase of themed natural history illustrations
Winter closes in, and many of the plants I need to illustrate for The Cultivated Forager (follow up to The Hedgerow Handbook, also by Adele Nozedar) are no longer much use as they are bearing neither flowers nor berries. Flowers which are still in bloom However, I was surprised to notice various plants which are most definitely in flower, […] Read more
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