Drawing Upon Nature
10/01/2024 01:05PM ● By Suzi Mitchell
Photo courtesy of Joanna Webster.
Some artists thrive in chaos; others, like Joanna Webster, flourish with order. The Australian-born creative is a botanical illustrator whose subjects require a level of intricacy few people could muster the patience to achieve. “There is definitely a lot of problem-solving involved, which is something I get a lot from,” she says.
Jo graduated from the University of Queensland with an arts degree in journalism, and a science degree in botany and ecology. Her career started in the engineering industry as a scientific writer working with small communities to improve communication on planning, environmental and societal issues. For 8 1/2 years, her home was was Papua, Indonesia, where she worked alongside her husband on mining operations for Freeport-McMoRan.
During their tenure Jo co-wrote the book “Amua-gaig-e: the Ethnobotany of the Amungme of Papua, Indonesia,” which inspired a decision to revisit her artistic side. “I really wanted to do something just for me that wasn’t about work or family life,” she says.
With two children in tow, the family settled in Colorado and Jo enrolled in the Denver Botanic Gardens’ School of Botanical Art and Illustration in 2015. She was awarded the school’s 9th (of 100), Sydney Parkinson Award for Excellence in Botanical Illustration.
During her studies she was exposed to a technique devised by Dr. Max Brödel, a German medical illustrator who used carbon dust on paper to create detailed drawings of his subject matter in the early 1900s.
His inspiration proved pivotal for Jo’s immersion as a professional artist. In a heavily windowed studio overlooking Strawberry Park in Steamboat Springs, she is constantly expanding her body of work.
Her botanical depictions require the precision of a surgeon, with a set of tools on hand to serve specific functions. Jo begins by grinding carbon pencils to make the carbon dust, using a metal or glass file, or an ultra-fine, plastic-backed sandpaper. The dust is applied very lightly onto a semi-smooth paper with a slightly toothed surface using dry watercolor brushes. “The carbon dust doesn’t erase easily, so you need to use a very light touch,” she says. She keeps a lint cloth on hand to remove excess dust from the brush and kneaded or plastic erasers to lift unwanted particles.
A layer of tracing paper protects the rest of the paper, other than the area she works on. She highlights finer details with a mechanical pencil or a hard carbon pencil (B or 2B), intermittently spraying isopropyl alcohol as a fixative between layers.
Her velvety images are transferred onto photopolymer direct gravure plates, which secures the fine detail. Jo can then ink and print the plates onto paper using a traditional printing press, a technique she learned from mentor and friend Sue Oehme of Steamboat-based Oehme Graphics. “It’s fascinating to work with her and see her patiently figure a problem out,” Sue says. “She is truly a scientific artist, and her drawings are so incredibly delicate.”
Despite her level of patience, Jo confesses she does bore easily and switches between media depending on her field of study. “I don’t like to use the same tools all time, and usually leave it up to the subject to determine what I need to use.” Colored pencils and watercolors are favorites, and she can switch gears to graphics when friends ask for help to design a logo.
"I love a challenge and with my art I wanted to try something hard and do it until it wasn’t difficult,” she says with the dedication of a scientifically minded creative.
Some artists thrive in chaos; others, like Joanna Webster, flourish with order. The Australian-born creative is a botanical illustrator whose subjects require a level of intricacy few people could muster the patience to achieve. “There is definitely a lot of problem-solving involved, which is something I get a lot from,” she says.
Jo graduated from the University of Queensland with an arts degree in journalism, and a science degree in botany and ecology. Her career started in the engineering industry as a scientific writer working with small communities to improve communication on planning, environmental and societal issues. For 8 1/2 years, her home was was Papua, Indonesia, where she worked alongside her husband on mining operations for Freeport-McMoRan.
During their tenure Jo co-wrote the book “Amua-gaig-e: the Ethnobotany of the Amungme of Papua, Indonesia,” which inspired a decision to revisit her artistic side. “I really wanted to do something just for me that wasn’t about work or family life,” she says.
With two children in tow, the family settled in Colorado and Jo enrolled in the Denver Botanic Gardens’ School of Botanical Art and Illustration in 2015. She was awarded the school’s 9th (of 100), Sydney Parkinson Award for Excellence in Botanical Illustration.
During her studies she was exposed to a technique devised by Dr. Max Brödel, a German medical illustrator who used carbon dust on paper to create detailed drawings of his subject matter in the early 1900s.
His inspiration proved pivotal for Jo’s immersion as a professional artist. In a heavily windowed studio overlooking Strawberry Park in Steamboat Springs, she is constantly expanding her body of work.
Her botanical depictions require the precision of a surgeon, with a set of tools on hand to serve specific functions. Jo begins by grinding carbon pencils to make the carbon dust, using a metal or glass file, or an ultra-fine, plastic-backed sandpaper. The dust is applied very lightly onto a semi-smooth paper with a slightly toothed surface using dry watercolor brushes. “The carbon dust doesn’t erase easily, so you need to use a very light touch,” she says. She keeps a lint cloth on hand to remove excess dust from the brush and kneaded or plastic erasers to lift unwanted particles.
A layer of tracing paper protects the rest of the paper, other than the area she works on. She highlights finer details with a mechanical pencil or a hard carbon pencil (B or 2B), intermittently spraying isopropyl alcohol as a fixative between layers.
Her velvety images are transferred onto photopolymer direct gravure plates, which secures the fine detail. Jo can then ink and print the plates onto paper using a traditional printing press, a technique she learned from mentor and friend Sue Oehme of Steamboat-based Oehme Graphics. “It’s fascinating to work with her and see her patiently figure a problem out,” Sue says. “She is truly a scientific artist, and her drawings are so incredibly delicate.”
Despite her level of patience, Jo confesses she does bore easily and switches between media depending on her field of study. “I don’t like to use the same tools all time, and usually leave it up to the subject to determine what I need to use.” Colored pencils and watercolors are favorites, and she can switch gears to graphics when friends ask for help to design a logo.
"I love a challenge and with my art I wanted to try something hard and do it until it wasn’t difficult,” she says with the dedication of a scientifically minded creative.