Description
The Joy of Botanical Drawing
A Step-by-Step Guide to Drawing and Painting Flowers, Leaves, Fruit, and More
by Wendy Hollender
An inspiring and easy-to-follow guide that covers everything you need to draw our natural world.
Create stunningly realistic and vibrant botanical illustrations, from flowers so lifelike you can almost smell
them to tomatoes that could have just been picked from your garden. Known for her vivid and detailed
illustrations, Wendy Hollender shares her carefully honed techniques to help beginners get started and
experts take their skills to the next level. Bite-size lessons break down the basics, then increase in
complexity, all paired with in-depth illustrations to guide you in using colored and watercolor pencils to
bring a botanical subject fully to life. Hollender shows you how to accomplish scientifically accurate
portraits of a spiraling pine cone, spiky chestnut, fuchsia-tinted radish, a graceful morning glory, and
many more specimens in this comprehensive resource for anyone interested in botanical drawing.
Wendy Hollender is a botanical artist, illustrator, instructor, and author. She is a leading expert in using
colored pencils and watercolor pencils to create detailed botanical drawings and paintings. Her
illustrations have been published in the New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good
Housekeeping, and Sunset magazine. Her work has been exhibited by the Royal Botanical Gardens and
the Smithsonian National Museum for Natural History. She is currently an instructor at the New York
Botanical Garden and leads workshops at her farm in Accord, New York. She is the author of Botanical
Drawing in Color and the illustrator of Foraging and Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook.
“Exquisite. As with a cookbook or a dictionary, you can go through the pages picking out particular topics
or suggestions that grab your interest. Wendy is a highly accomplished botanical illustrator and, inspired
by this thorough guide, you will enjoy exploring color, flowers, and new ways of drawing.”
—CLARE WALKER LESLIE, author of Nature Drawing: A Tool for Learning and Keeping a Nature
Journal
“Right away I felt connected to Wendy in her exploration of nature through this book. She does a
beautiful job marrying botanicals with fine art in our modern day . . . sprinkling bits and pieces of
throughout, making you feel as though she’s sitting down with you and telling you the story of art through
the earth.”
—PEGGY DEAN, author of Botanical Line Drawing
“The Joy of Botanical Drawing really shows how to make watercolor and colored pencil illustrations come
to life and have fun doing it. Use it for self-study or as lesson plans in your class or art circle. You will feel
like Wendy is in the room beside you, guiding you through each step, anticipating problems, reinforcing
key points, and helping you see your progress.”
—JOHN MUIR LAWS, author of The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling
