Abrakadoodle ARTIST OF DISTINCTION

Botanical Illustrator – Melanie Smythe

Melanie Smythe, botanical artist, works with students at Lady Bird Johnson’s Wildflower Center

Texas artist Melanie Smythe is a botanical illustrator who loves to draw flowers. She uses many techniques including pencil, pen, ink, graphite crumbs on Mylar, watercolor, colored pencil, computer drawings, and more. Her work is called scientific illustration, which accurately depicts plant life found in nature. Scientific illustrators are always telling a story using drawing and composition to visually explain the structure, organization and relationship of an object. Smythe works together with scientists to be able to interpret and reconstruct her images with accuracy. Melanie applies creativity to science with remarkable results.

Melanie studies each flower before drawing it. Abrakadoodle students can apply this same power of observation to create nature art. They can learn about its structure while using different techniques to represent flowers. Children can learn to use watercolor by blending colors, creating value with thin overlapping strokes, drawing lines, texture and more while painting a flower.