A few weeks ago, a friend wrote and asked me: “What natural history illustrators/artist-scientists would you want to use to inspire youth/adults to love nature, art, and science?”
Oh, was I excited to answer the question!
Here are a handful of the natural history SciArtists I recommended:
- Cathy Johnson
- Jenny Keller – contributor to Field Notes on Science and Nature (see below)
- Bernd Heinrich – see also this piece with commentary re all his books/sketches
- John Muir Laws
- Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) – see also this piece from The Atlantic
- Beatrix Potter
- Leonardo Da Vinci
- Genevieve Jones – “America’s Other Audubon”
- Claire Emery
And, here are a couple of books that can get you rolling with even more ideas & inspiring SciArtists:
- Field Notes on Science and Nature -essays with field note examples from about 10 different people who do field work and use field journals/notebooks.
- The Heyday of Natural History – great investigation of how the pursuit of natural history became a popular past time and then developed into specialized science
- I want to read this one: Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower: Artists’ Books and the Natural World.
Bethann Garramon Merkle, MFA 
From a comment on my Facebook page: Paul Alaback writes, “I would add Ann Zwinger. She was trained as an artist, but became a great naturalist; her books are classics. Land Above the Trees and Beyond the Aspen Grove are real classics. I always keep a copy of Beyond the Aspen grove at the cabin for inspiration.”
Thanks for that suggestion! I don’t think I’ve read her work, but I’m going to go look for it.