Figura Botanica

Hello everyone, hope all is well ✨

I want to share a little bit of my history with all of you, of how I came to love Botany and the natural world so much, and the formation of the Figura Botanica collection.

It's a bit of a read, but if you like stories and learning how things come to be, I invite you to come along. 

I have drawn all my life. As a kid, I used to draw and paint in coloring books or anything I could get my hands on. But I also loved learning how things work and why they do what they do. Looking through encyclopedias and exploring the fields around my house were my favorite forms of entertainment. 

After high school, I thought of pursuing a career in science. It was during my early college years, while taking Botany, Biology, and Zoology classes, that my brain exploded in a good way. Learning about the small world of fungi, how plants "breathe" (one of my fav things to learn) and circulate their food and water, how they work at the microscopic level, how Insects and animals live their lives, and the worlds within worlds that coexist among us. It is beyond alluring to me how all of this just goes on unnoticed and unknown to many. 

I used to fill my lab notebooks with drawings of the things we were learning. Sometimes my professor would let me swap a dissection for a scientific study drawing since I hated cutting into the critters.

One of my favorite times was interning at a herbarium where my job was to mount previously preserved specimens on a large manila-type backing board and attach the informational label to the bottom corner of the board. I handled specimens dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, collected way before the formal establishment of the herbarium. I loved looking at the old labels written in beautiful handwriting, and the later-year ones created with typewriters. I had to carefully glue the specimens using archival glue and small strips of acid-free paper, as best I could, so that it would keep the dried figure and parts neat while trying to give it an artistic pose, if possible.

After graduation, with no luck finding open positions in botanical research, I decided to pursue my other passion: art and making things with it. And so I did my next degree in digital art and graphic design. Through many twists and turns, I built my career by working on various projects in children's books, branding, graphic design, and, later, web and app development.

During this time in my life, I mostly did charcoal or pencil drawing and only occasionally, since I was focused on work and building a career.

Then one day, I decided to create charcoal powder and use brushes to "paint" my lantern fish drawing. This experiment woke in me the idea to give painting a try, so I decided to really go all in and bought my first set of professional watercolor supplies for an online botanical watercolor tutorial. 

I was seriously hooked! From here on, I consumed every online workshop or tutorial book I could get my hands on. I also started experimenting more with different colored materials and methods like gouache and charcoal pastels.

This new thing electrified my brain and gave me a new north. So little by little, one thing led to another, and I created my personal space for all things colorful, magical, and wonderful, which I called Elm Tree Studio.

 

Ever since I started on this journey, I have wanted to create a collection to express my love for the botanical and natural world, but I wanted to do something different from my scientifically accurate Botanical Watercolors. When I was presented with the challenge of creating pins for a 1" space, my brain started to connect experiences, scientific interests, and my love for doodling forms, and it was how Figura Botanica was born.

The idea is to create a collection that can keep growing over the years, where I can add my favorite plants and natural history elements while also sharing interesting bits of info about them.

If you would like to check out the new collection, coming out on Aug 6 as part of the Pocket Change Event, click here or the banner link below 👇

Make sure to hit follow and stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes, sneak peeks, and updates to come.

With lots of love and appreciation ✨
Jen, Elm Tree Studio