Inspirational nature artists

A showcase of my favourite artists and illustrators who inspire me to connect with nature 🌿

Mar 21, 2024

In this post, I wanted to share some artists and illustrators whose work is influenced by nature and who inspire me to spend time connecting with nature and my sketchbook.

I’m fascinated by the variety of styles and approaches of these artists and encouraged by how there’s no one way to create a nature journal. We all work in different mediums, paper types and sizes and we are all attracted to different subjects based on our unique interests or location. Our journals are not just factual accounts of what we observe, they are expressions of ourselves and our creative voice.

This is a free post as I want to share the work of these artists as far as I can. In return please show some support for this post by sharing it with others who might like it, leave a comment or click the 🩶. And of course, follow the links to these artists and show them some love too.

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Creative Cocoon

Pauline AKA

La Scarlatte

shares her inspiration and process behind her incredible nature-inspired illustrations in Creative Cocoon on Substack.

🌿 La Scarlatte on Instagram

In love with Pauline’s bright and airy studio 💛

Amy James

I first discovered Amy’s work in a shop window in my local town and fell in love with her delicate illustrations. And it was great to discover a local illustrator living so close to me!

Amy has a monthly newsletter called ‘Studio Notes’ where she shares her inspirations, latest drawings and behind-the-scenes work.

🌿 Amy’s Instagram

Zoe Finney

Zoe is a local illustrator, and she, Amy, and I regularly meet up for sketch sessions, chat, coffee and cake. I feel very lucky to have discovered these lovely people on my doorstep! ❤️

Zoe’s use of colour, texture and mark-making brings her animal drawings to life and I love how much personality her bird illustrations have. The way she describes the details in her observations of nature brings them to life on the page.

🌿 Zoe’s Instagram

Emma Cavill

Emma is a lover of the great outdoors and draws from observation from her farm and around her local countryside. She keeps a regular sketchbook and nature journal practice and shares this on her Substack:

Last year Emma and her sister set up some drawing challenges to help keep themselves inspired and push them out of their comfort zones. First was Boatober and they enjoyed the challenge so much they started Farmvember. Animals and farm machinery are a tough mix so hats off to them for tackling this subject matter!

I was drawn to the immediacy of Emma’s work and her confidence in the pen and wash technique.

🌿 Emma’s Instagram

Explore the #farmvember hashtag https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/farmvember2023/?hl=en

Helen Stark

Helen is a French-Irish illustrator, artist and teacher, living in South Yorkshire, UK. She is passionate about heritage, the seasons, treasures of old and noticing little things we take for granted.

I came across Helen’s visual journals when I joined Substack and was blown away by their beauty. Her journal pages are so rich and evocative and you can feel Helen’s deep connection with her environment on every page.

🌿 Helen’s Instagram

Wild Crayon Sketching from Claire Watson

www.wildcrayon.co.uk

I met Claire whilst working at children’s book publishers. Claire was a book designer, I was interning and we bonded on a shared love of children’s books, illustration and tea.

Claire now works as a freelance designer and illustrator and runs green sketching workshops in West Sussex, UK. She set these up to share her joy in drawing outdoors with others, as a way of connecting with nature and improving our wellbeing.

Claire Watson and the Wild Crayon Sketching workshop

Claire is passionate about showing people that anyone can draw and that you don’t need to create a piece of finished artwork to enjoy the process and benefit from those few moments of drawing. Just taking the time to stop and notice and draw is so powerful.

🌿 Wild Crayon Sketching on Instagram

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