Adara Koivula

Adara Koivula is an illustrator originally from Arizona. For the last 6 years she has become a
resident of beautiful California, earning her BFA in Illustration from the Laguna College of Art and Design in 2020. She is currently working hard in California State Monterey Bay’s Science Illustration program. Through her artwork, she enjoys getting others excited to learn about nature and science.

Website: www.koivulart.com
Instagram: @koivulart

Andrea Dingeldein

Andrea Dingeldein specializes in visual depictions of the maritime environment. She illustrates everything from the flora and fauna of the ocean realm, to the vessels and lighthouses that have guided generations of humans towards scientific discovery. With watercolors and field notebook in hand, she sets out into California’s tide pools, redwood forests, and coastal prairies to document the wonders and oddities of the natural world. Back in the studio she transforms her field studies into polished science illustrations for researchers, parks, and local environmental organizations that fight to protect the ecosystems she knows and loves. In addition to working as a freelance artist, Andrea is an instructor for the Science Illustration Program at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB). She teaches Field Sketching, Applied Techniques in Natural Science Illustration, and Applied Integration of Digital Media.

Website: http://www.thelocalnaturalist.com/
Instagram: @the_local_naturalist

Ben Witzke

I was born and raised in California and am an expert in the ecology and natural history of the California floristic province. I studied both biology and art and hold a masters certificate in Science Illustration from CSU Monterey Bay. I currently work as a conservation biologist with San Francisco Zoo as part of their Anuran conservation head-start program, rearing threatened and endangered species of native frog and toad for release into the wild. I have worked with a number of research institutions including California Academy of Sciences, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Santa Barbara, and University of Connecticut to survey for rare salamanders in remote and rugged regions of California. I live in the San Francisco bay area where I continue to work as a freelance illustrator, graphic designer, naturalist, conservation biologist, author, gardener, musician, photographer, prop maker, model maker, and picture framer.

Website: https://www.bwitzke.com/ 
Facebook: @TheBewilderedBeast

Brynna Reilly

Facebook: @brynna_illustrates

Calene Luczo

Calene Luczo is a professional freelance marine science illustrator. Her undergraduate career in marine biology and art propelled her toward completing a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration from CSU Monterey Bay in 2012. Since then, she has done projects for organizations locally and globally, including The Point Lobos Foundation, Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, WIRED science, the Environmental Protection Agency of Ireland, the Bay Foundation, Carnegie Institute of Science, Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, and the U.S. Navy. Her goal with her artwork is to create a window for people to better see and understand the natural history of coastal species and ecosystems with the hope of inspiring ocean conservation efforts.

Website: www.luczoart.com
Instagram: @luczoillustration

Charin Park

A childhood of roaming San Francisco’s salt marshes instilled in Charin Park a love for coastal science. Today, she is a biologist and science illustrator, whose work focuses on invertebrates, shorebirds, and our relationship with the ocean. In addition to painting, she also loves beachcombing and hiking.

Constance Speer

Constance is a Monterey based artist with a love for outdoor exploration. Her weekends are
often spent hiking or scrambling on the rocks of Asilomar during low tide. Illustrating the natural world requires her to persistently develop her attention to detail. This well worked attention sparks curiosity in each aspect of the world around her. For Constance, Science Illustration allows her to continue questioning and learning from nature. Her hope is to create art which evokes this same excitement for outdoor exploration in others.

Website: www.conniespeerillustrations.com
Instagram: @constance_acrylic

Elaine Goldstone

I began watercolor painting as a regular practice about 7 years ago and began my botanical studies through the program at Filoli Gardens and Estate in 2016. I continue to study watercolor through workshops and classes for both Plein air, in-studio and the amazing world of botanicals. Botanical work requires creativity of the arts and the detail of science to accurately portray a subject. Plein air land and seascape painting challenges my skills in a very different way. Striving to be loose and let watercolor work its magic. Taking a large panorama in front of me and editing it down to a pleasing composition that captures light and dark and the feeling of the place surrounding me.

Instagram: @Goldiesgardenstudio

Elizabeth Conway

Website: www.morwayartistry.com

Elizabeth Romanini

Website: http://www.thenaturalline.com/
Instagram: @elizabethromanini

Erin E. Hunter

When Erin E. Hunter was nine, her great-great aunt Alice gave her a copy of the Reader’s Digest Guide to North American Wildlife. Fascinated by the detailed color illustrations of flowers, insects and animals, Erin read all 559 pages. Her first ventures into science and illustration started with that book, where she checked off the plants and wildlife of her own backyard and drew birds in the margins. Today, Erin is a trained science illustrator with a background in graphic design. She splits her work between fine art paintings depicting the natural world, and technical illustrations for an academic science journal (Annual Reviews). When she’s not painting or working at the computer, she can be found puttering in her garden or hiking in California’s coastal forests. Her dog-eared copy of the Reader’s Digest Guide to North American Wildlife sits prominently on her desk.

Website: www.eehunter.com
Instagram: @erinhunterart

Erin Ellis

Erin Marie Ellis is an artist, illustrator, and designer based in Western North Carolina. Formally trained in traditional illustration, typography, and the lettering arts, Erin studied at Maryland Institute, College of Art and The Cooper Union before landing in the Science Illustration program at CSUMB last year. Plants are Erin’s primary interest and have been part of her art practice since a serendipitous trip to New Zealand in 2013 when she began to study them through drawing. Erin finds meaning creating art in the service of nature, helping others to understand and value our precious natural world.

Website: www.erinellis.com
Instagram: @leavesandletterforms

Esmeralda Cabrera

I was born and raised in the ancestral lands of the modern day Ohlone and I am a life-long student of the interrelationships of people and their plants. Connecting to the land and regional native plants through art is one way that I pay respect to the tenacity, resilience, remarkable adaptability and communal beauty of the native fauna, flora and indigenous people of California. I love the vehicle of origami because its only requirement to create is paper and some patience. For myself as a naturalist, origami is a natural bridge between observation and representation and finding curious relationships between proportions, folds and forms. 

Instagram: @ma_mi_gami

Glenda Mahoney

Glenda Lee Mahoney is an artist and illustrator who lives on the coast in Half Moon Bay, California, and works for the nonprofit scientific journal Annual Reviews. She has always loved living by the ocean and been intrigued by its creatures and mysteries. She studied marine science in California, Australia, Tahiti, and Florida before transitioning to art as a way to communicate her passion for the ocean to others. After reading early research on the plastic pollution crisis, she went looking for it on her local beach and was surprised at how much she found. Now she collects plastic from the ocean in many locations and transforms it into portraits of wildlife to help inspire environmental conservation. Glenda has a B.S. in Aquatic Biology from UC Santa Barbara, a graduate certificate in scientific illustration from UC Santa Cruz, and has interned at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Her work has been published in Annual Reviews, Knowable Magazine, Science Advances, and the design book Visual Strategies.

Website: www. glendamahoney.com
Instagram: @glendamahoney_art

Hannah Caisse

Hello! My name is Hannah Caisse, and I love science illustration. I am a well-rounded and certified science illustrator with a Bachelor’s degree in evolution and ecology, and I have interests in vertebrate anatomy, mammalogy, herpetology, and paleontology. My combined background in science and art is an invaluable asset when I approach my illustrations. Not only am I dedicated to portraying as many visual facts as possible in my work, but also I strive to give my illustration subjects a sense of self, a life perceived beyond the paper. I enjoy illustrating highly detailed natural subjects, varying from native California plants to dinosaurs and other prehistoric species, in traditional and digital media. My ultimate goal is to generate a greater understanding of the natural world and modern science, one drawing at a time.

Website: www.hannahcaisse.com
Instagram: @synap_sida

Hannah Kanne

Hannah is a science illustrator from Georgia. She received her B.F.A. in Studio Art with an emphasis in Science Illustration from The University of Georgia. Her desire to learn more brought her to California where she received her certificate in Science Illustration at CSUMB. Science illustration allows her to study and reflect the beauty and complexity of nature. She looks to the skies and the ocean for inspiration. Using watercolor, colored pencil, graphite, ink, and digital mediums, she hopes to educate and inspire others to find the same love and passion for the natural world that surrounds us.

Website: hannahkanne.com
Instagram: @kanne.studio

Jean M. Witzke

Jean Witzke grew up in rural Michigan surrounded by lakes, rolling hills, dairies, and her grandfather’s fruit farm—terrain not unlike coastal Northern California. A love of both art and math led her to major in commercial interior design at The University of Michigan School of Architecture and Design. Through Academy of Sciences workshops from Julie Stein, Lynette Cook and Chuck Stasik, she discovered botanical illustration. The scientific illustration techniques she learned, using color pencil and more recently, color pencil and watercolor combined, provided her introduction—and conversion—to watercolor. Witzke’s work has garnered numerous awards in San Francisco East Bay Area exhibits. Her illustrations appear on textiles, greeting cards, stationery, commercial marketing materials, and posters. Her fine art is among collections from coast to coast.

Jennifer Zee

Jennifer V. Zee is a Chinese American, San Francisco based Printmaker. She prints distinctive nature and geometry inspired art from hand carved blocks. Jennifer’s designs are meticulous, often featuring intricate tessellations that incorporate concepts and aesthetics from her background as a scientific illustrator and biologist. Jennifer is an active artist and teacher in her local community, and is passionate about using her art to inform her audience about biodiversity and conservation, as well as social justice with a focus on Chinese American experience.

Instagram: @ginkgozee

Jonathan Broberg

Jon is a current science illustration student who originally hails from San Diego. Jon’s sensibilities were shaped by a childhood surrounded by farm animals and performing-arts communities, where observation and expression were encouraged and inextricably linked. He uses playfulness to approach topics on behavior and ecological relationships, and the non-human ways that animals show their own forms of expression. Jon recently emerged from seven years as an undergrad, during which time he studied studio art and biology at community college and CSU Long Beach. He aspires to work in the field of interactive educational media. When he’s not painting, Jon enjoys wildlife photography, amateur woodworking, and making unnecessary graphs.

Instagram: @jonbro_art

Kaelin O’Hare

Kaelin O’Hare is an illustrator based in Santa Cruz, California. She graduated with a BA in
Illustration from Norwich University of the Arts, in the United Kingdom, in 2018. Her work
focuses on natural history, landscape, and outdoor exploration, with a particular interest in trees. She works at Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area, where she illustrates interpretive panels and has designed a variety of interpretive media, including, most recently, a barn mural.

Website: www.kaelinohare.com
Instagram: @kaelinohare_illustration

Kathryn McCullough

Kathryn McCullough is a Bay Area native living in the Mountains above Santa Cruz.  Katie specializes in watercolor and focuses on representing the amazement found in the beauty of her surroundings.  She is motivated to create art from the worlds seen around her.  Katie’s most recent work springs from morning walks through the Monarch Sanctuary at Natural Bridges State Park. These creatures flickering from branch to branch competing for the ideal position to catch the sun’s rays moved Katie to seek a deeper understanding of the Monarch butterfly’s minute existence. The lush landscape of Santa Cruz, from the mountains to the shoreline, is overflowing with an endless stream of curiosities.  It is from this great spectacle of nature that she finds inspiration

Instagram: @pinkinkarts

Kristen Burroughs

A southern California native, Kristen moved north to Monterey County to study marine science, and received her B.S. in 2015 from California State University, Monterey Bay. Only after working hands-on with animals for many years did she learn about the possibility of becoming a science illustrator. Kristen enrolled in the Science Illustration Certificate Program at CSUMB where she was able to further develop her art and learn many new skills and techniques. The final part of the program consisted of a 400 hour internship of each student’s choosing. Kristen completed an internship with Bat Conservation International and had the opportunity to illustrate bats from the neo-tropics and also some endangered bat species. Kristen loves to illustrate animals, and hopes to promote conservation for wildlife with her artwork. Currently, Kristen works as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. In her free time, she enjoys birdwatching, nature photography and working in her garden.

Website: www.kristenburroughsillustration.com
Instagram: @hellohsparroh

Lindsay Newey

My life has always been a balancing act between the love of science and the love of art. These fields have always been arbitrarily separated, but in reality they are interconnected and enhance each other. It seemed like an impossible feat until I heard about scientific illustration from my high school art teacher. It led me down my collegiate path, majoring in Biology and minoring in both film and art. I always joked I was the the coolest looking one in my science classes and the only one in my art class that knew the sodium-potassium pump process by heart.  I am now finishing up my certification in science illustration and am looking forward to what the future holds for my career in the sciences and arts field.

Website: https://lnewey6105.myportfolio.com
Instagram: @covenriot

Lora Roame

Lora Roame is a wildlife biologist and artist living and working in the Bay Area. Born and raised in Southern California, she draws much of her inspiration from her time spent exploring the oceans and deserts near her home. She uses watercolor and graphite to create detailed illustrations of native California wildlife. Ms. Roame’s passion for the conservation of our local wildlife and wild spaces is reflected in both her art, her career as a biologist, and her volunteer work in her community. One of her favorite accomplishments is volunteering with community science groups like the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, not only helping in the collection of data on migratory raptors in the Marin Headlands, but also in creating artwork and illustrations for their publications and training manuals. She hopes her work inspires others to discover and get curious about their local wildlife.

Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LoraRoameArt
Instagram and Twitter: @loraroameart

Maria Cecelia Freeman

Maria Cecilia Freeman gardens, paints and teaches in Aptos, California. Her work includes scientific illustration and botanically accurate fine art, often merging the two in graphite and watercolor studies. She likes to create art that will serve the goals of education and conservation. She takes a special interest in portraying native plant species with a view to their preservation. Also, she particularly loves drawing and painting heritage and species roses. Her work has appeared in solo and juried exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. She is a Filoli Florilegium artist and has contributed to the Alcatraz and Mt. Tamalpais Florilegia as well. She is a member of the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists, and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.

Website: http://www.mcf-art.com

Meegan Painter

With formal training in a wide variety of media, Meegan’s current work focuses primarily on honoring the fine details of the world and depicting the relationships between organisms in a wide variety of ecosystems. Her great passion is bringing people back to connection with the natural world through artistic experiences. She also volunteers for Resource Management at Pinnacles National Park, where she continues her training as an amateur naturalist. Meegan spends most of her free time exploring the vast collection of ecosystems we call California. 

Instagram: @seven_ravens_studio
Website: https://www.sevenravensstudio.com/

Melissa Robbins-Eugene

Hi there, thank you for viewing my art! My name is Melissa Robbins-Eugene and I’m a visual
artist. Born and raised in Monterey County, I’m inspired by the beauty and functionality of
nature, especially fungi. I first started painting mushrooms because I’m a huge fantasy buff and loved the whimsical aspect of them. As I looked up various mushrooms for reference, I learned more about them, and I became more interested in identification and foraging. As I’ve collected specimens, I’ve “preserved” them through my art, noting characteristics such as appearance and growth patterns. It is my hope to inspire and educate others, as well as demystify thestigma around wild mushrooms so that everyone may enjoy their benefits! 

Instagram: @ArtByMycoMelissa

Mica Carr

Mica Carr is mixed media illustrator with a special interest in echinoderms and other marine invertebrates. Originally from the east coast, Mica has had the opportunity to live and travel extensively across the west. They are currently enrolled in the Science Illustration program at CSUMB where they enjoy exploring a variety of different styles and mediums. 

Instagram: @mica.artofscience

Molly Brown

Molly Brown is a wildlife printmaker living and working in Santa Cruz, California. 

Website: https://www.mollybrownart.com
Instagram: @pots_n_things

Nicholas Ta

Nicholas Ta specializes in creating digital sculptures and printed models of marine animals in their environments. In under 1 year with the Monterey Peninsula College 3D Arts Program; he has become adept in multiple fields such as: digital sculpting, slicing, FDM & Resin, machine maintenance & repair, scanning, photogrammetry, and fabrication. These new skills are combined with his extensive background in professional SCUBA diving; and his undergraduate studies in Ecology and Animal Physiology. His foundational goal is to use 3D Arts to enhance scientific communication; creating more accessibility in marine science. 

Website: ReefRenders.com

Noelle Valdez

My name is Noelle and I enjoy exploring the Santa Cruz wildlife while on hikes. I began crafting mushroom sculptures out of admiration for the specimens I observed during my adventures. Slowly but surely my sculpting skills became better. I now hold the goal of creating the most realistic mushroom sculpture. I am honored to share my artwork with you. It brings me much joy when my creations find a new home where they will continue to be admired and cherished.

Website: https://linktr.ee/ecogeekart

Patricia Larenas

Patricia Larenas has a special interest the iconic trees of the San Francisco Bay Area, especially the native species. Her tree portraits of individual trees, are intended to bring attention to their profound beauty and their critical role in our global ecosystem. She believes that the health of our trees is a reflection of the health of our planet, and currently both are in crisis. Patricia is currently Artist in Residence with Canopy, a non-profit dedicated to growing the urban forest in the Bay Area (www.canopy.org). She studied in the Filoli Botanical Art Certificate Program in Woodside CA, and is an exhibiting member of the Northern California Society of Botanical Artists. She received her B.A. degree in Studio Art from San Jose State University. Patricia was born in Chile and currently lives in Mountain View with her husband and a menagerie of trees.

Website: www.plarenasonpaper.com
Instagram: @plarenas_onpaper

Rachel Strader

Growing up in Upstate New York, I didn’t get to see the ocean until I was twelve years old, but I was already obsessed. I remember walking out onto the Florida beach with my grandparents while sporting a t-shirt with a beautifully-rendered watercolor array of the local reef fishes–the science nerd equivalent of wearing the band’s t-shirt to their concert. Since that young age, the ocean, art, and conservation have been currents flowing through my winding path. In my artwork I focus on natural science, the beauty of special places, and the critters that live there.  I paint evocative, gentle watercolors and landscapes, and also do more graphic linocut, ink, and digital works. I use color and composition to enhance ecological stories. Whatever medium, my work always aims to set a mood and put the viewer inside the environment–hopefully inspiring them to care more about its lasting health.

Website: www.rachelstrader.com

Rebecca Botelho

I am a self-taught botanical artist, working primarily in watercolors. I live in California, with my
husband, a cat, and two dogs. My favorite subjects to paint are plants, particularly those with intricate shapes and / or vivid colors, and species native to my birthplace and home in Northern California. I bring my training as a scientist to my painting, always trying to tell a story about the botanical subject’s natural lifecycle and growth, and the place of that particular plant or animal in a larger ecological context.

Website: www.watercolorandline.com
Instagram: @watercolorandline

Sami Chang

Samantha (Sami) Chang is a proud East Bay Area Native. Growing up, she explored her jungle of a backyard, sketchbook and pens always in hand, and drew everything she saw. Though art was one of her first loves, she became passionate about marine sciences when she was 12 years old. This passion drove her to pursuing a Marine Science degree from California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) and allowed her to focus her studies on a large range of marine organisms, from the Humpback whales that visit the bay during the summer months to feed on schools of sardines to the black abalone that hide deep within the rocky crevices of the intertidal to avoid being eaten by sea otters. Combining her love of art and science, she went on to gain her graduate certification in Science Illustration at CSUMB in hopes of educating large audiences on various marine organisms and ecological processes as well as how they are impacted by human interactions.

Website: https://www.schangstudios.com/

Sophie Wood Brinker

Sophie Wood Brinker (she/her) is an Illustrator who concentrates on appreciation of the small + care of human and non-human neighbors. She grew up in Santa Cruz, California, on Awaswas-speaking Uypi land, where she found endless inspiration in the flora and fauna of the central coast. Sophie has a BA in Peace and Global Studies from Earlham College, a Certificate in Graphic Design from UC Berkeley, and is a graduate of the Science Illustration Graduate program at Monterey State University. Through watercolor, pencil, and ink, Sophie communicates the brilliance and intricacy of the ecosystems that surround us. She currently lives in Bolinas, California, on Coast Miwok land. 

Website: www.sophiewoodbrinker.com
Instagram: @sophiewoodbrinker

Stephanie Martin

Stephanie Zeiler Martin is a printmaker and painter living along the California coast. Plants and birds are persistent images, and her work pays homage to their diversity and fascinating design. Stephanie studied natural history as an undergraduate, and after a long career in education began taking art classes. She draws plants and birds in botanical gardens, natural history museums and in the wild, and then winnows her sketchbook images, transforming the most arresting ones onto the printing matrix –a copper plate- using traditional etching techniques. Her work is known for its fine aquatint technique, the mercurial process in which tonal areas are added to the image by etching fine textures into the plate. A member of the California Society of Printmakers, Stephanie has exhibited primarily in California, from Point Reyes to Yosemite to San Francisco Botanical Garden. Her etchings are in private collections around the world, as well as Stanford Medical Center and the Library of Congress, and can also be found in galleries in Carmel, Pescadero, Minneapolis, and Yosemite National Park (The Ansel Adams Gallery).

Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/stephaniemartinart/
Instagram: @stephaniemartinart

Susan Butler-Graham

Susan grew up drawing, painting, and sculpting with her artist father and sisters and studied Art and Spanish at Muhlenberg College in the 1980s. After teaching elementary school for 29 years, she began painting in earnest in the spring of 2017. Susan is a member of the Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Association, Los Gatos Art Association, and the California Watercolor Association. For Susan, painting is a way to practice mindfulness, draw attention to social and environmental issues, and to share her experience and love of nature with others. Her work ranges from simple line drawings and still life and animal studies to landscapes and abstract creations. She can be found outdoors doing plein air and urban sketching, as well as in the studio. Her work is shown at Gallery 24 in Los Gatos, California.

Website: https://www.susanbgart.com/
Instagram: @susanbgart

Suzy Radonsky

I am an American-Czech who was raised in the United States and a mother of two very active boys. A couple years ago, I had a unique family journey discovering that my older son was on the autistic spectrum. Along this journey I therapeutically found my way back to art which created a deeper understanding of self and discovery of my son’s point of view. When I’m not chasing around two kiddos, you can find me painting at The Tannery Art Compex in Studio #123. In my works I seek the lightness of being by finding the brilliance of pigments. My paintings range from botanicals, landscapes and animals – bringing hued genuineness, exaggerated brightness and illuminated existence to the things that I love.

Website: www.suzyradarts.com
Instagram: @suzyrad

Tina Fuller Somers

Tina Fuller Somers is a multi-disciplinary artist who combines her passion for art, nature, and science to create unique and inspiring works. With a BA in Painting and a Master’s Certification in Science Illustration, Tina has developed a diverse skill set that allows her to tackle a wide range of projects with confidence and creativity through her business, Hawk & Hammer Creative Studio. From field guides to woodblock prints and murals, she brings a distinctive perspective to her art that reflects her deep respect and appreciation for the natural world. As a mother and nature lover born and raised in Santa Cruz, Tina is driven by a desire to share her art with others and to promote a deeper connection to the world around us.

Website: www.hawkandhammer.com
Instagram: @hawkandhammergram

Torie Robinson

Torie is an artist and cartographer from Felton, California working in the field of conservation GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Drawing inspiration from studying and understanding all the intricate details that make a place…a place, he will invariably want to go home and map it.

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/torierobinsonmaps/home?pli=1
Instagram: @maritime.pine