Artist Margaret Saylor creates highly detailed, textural botanical paintings and drawings using watercolor, graphite and egg tempera on vellum and gesso board. Her art captures the essence of a simple object from nature and presents it as an exquisite jewel in an ethereal setting. Her hope is that the viewer will be entranced and inspired by the subject in the same way she was. She specializes in mushrooms, fungi and woodland plants and combines accurate illustration with the beauty of shape, form, and color, then adds a pinch of imagination.
Margaret earned a BFA in Communications Design at Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA. Trained as a graphic designer, Margaret worked for 10 years at William Fox Munroe, Inc., a graphic design firm specializing in package design. Her experience as a designer and illustrator provided the solid foundation needed when she turned to fine art in a quest for a hands-on, detail-oriented method of depicting the natural world. Margaret was awarded a certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration, with distinction, from the New York Botanical Garden in June 2013.
When not painting, Margaret teaches botanical art both online and in person. Venues include Mt Cuba Center, Hockessin, Delaware; GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, Pennsylvania; Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens, Devon, Pennsylvania; and Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She has also taught at ASBA Annual Meeting & Conferences and held workshops at the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York; Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, Richmond, Virginia, and Brookside Gardens, Wheaton, Maryland.
Margaret is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators, and has exhibited with both groups. Since 2013, she has been the Editor/Designer of The Botanical Artist, the quarterly journal of the American Society of Botanical Artists. She is co-founder of the Contemporary Naturalism Guild of Art, and recently joined the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club.