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, author, and instructor. Hollender’s illustrations have been published in The New York Times, “O,” The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Sunset Magazine, he Observer (UK) as well as a large advertising campaign for the National Peanut Board. Her work was included in the 13th International Exhibition at Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, and in exhibitions at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and the Smithsonian National Museum for Natural History. The US Botanic Garden had a show of Wendy's work on roots called Illustrating Hidden Treasures in the fall of 2015.She is the author of THE JOY OF BOTANICAL DRAWING: A Step-by-Step Guide to Drawing and Painting Flowers, Leaves, Fruit, and More, BOTANICAL DRAWING IN COLOR: A Basic Guide To Mastering Realistic Form And Naturalistic Color, THE PRACTICE OF BOTANICAL DRAWING, and BOTANICAL DRAWING, A BEGINNER'S GUIDE. She collaborated on a book written by Dina Falconi and illustrated by Wendy called Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook which has won two gold medals to date.

Wendy is an instructor of Botanical Art and Illustration at the New York Botanical Garden and leads workshops at her farm in Accord, NY, as well as in exotic locations such as Hawaii, Greece, Trinidad, and many nature preserves, botanical gardens, arts centers and colleges around the country. She recently started a highly successful online botanical drawing program: www.drawbotanical.com. She is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Florilegium Society and the National Tropical Botanical Garden Florilegium Project.

In 1976 Wendy graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and became a home furnishing textile designer. She began a career in botanical illustration after completing a certificate at the New York Botanical Garden in 1998. In 2009 she moved from Manhattan to a farm in the Hudson Valley so she could live among the plants she documents in her work.