Margaret Saylor
Margaret Saylor
About / Contact
ABOUT MARGARET
I'm a professional studio artist, designer, and teacher working from my home studio in Mt. Penn, Pennsylvania. My subjects are plants, fungi, and the wider natural world — the twigs, leaves, wild plants, and landscape details that most people walk past without stopping. I work in graphite and watercolor on vellum, and egg tempera on panel, building detailed, layered work that emphasizes shape, form, and close observation.
ARTIST VISION
I'm interested in how close looking can transform the familiar into something quietly extraordinary. I love drawing and building small worlds on the page — often a patch of forest floor or a tight slice of landscape — where viewers can linger over tiny shifts in color, texture, and form. My work is rooted in the Pennsylvania landscape and the up-close personalities of the plants that live within it. I draw on my design background to construct each painting with intention, experimenting with the juxtaposition of graphic shapes and natural forms to create images that feel both thoughtfully composed and deeply grounded in observation.
CONTACT
For classes, exhibitions, collaborations, or editorial inquiries, please get in touch.
BACKGROUND
My path to botanical art runs through two disciplines — communications design and close observation of the natural world. I hold a BFA in Communications Design from Kutztown University and a Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration, with distinction, from the New York Botanical Garden. Years of working as a graphic designer continue to inform how I think about composition, edge relationships, and visual storytelling.
I teach botanical drawing and painting to students of all levels, online and in person, with an atelier-style approach that emphasizes careful observation and step-by-step skill building. I've taught at Longwood Gardens, the New York Botanical Garden, Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens, Mt. Cuba Center, Morris Arboretum & Gardens, Historic Yellow Springs, Fleisher Art Memorial, and for the American Society of Botanical Artists' Annual Conferences.
I'm a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators, and I exhibit regularly with both organizations. I serve as Editor and Designer of The Botanical Artist, the quarterly journal of the American Society of Botanical Artists, and I'm co-founder of The Artful Wild, a Patreon community for observation-based drawing and painting.