Kelly Leahy Radding
Birds, animals, and plants are central in the work of artist Kelly Leahy Radding. Her paintings sing with the artist’s passion for the natural world. Her subjects are from near and far, a testament to her love of travel and of finding the wild everywhere she wanders.
Radding honors the natural world she loves through her art. She is inspired by the grand vistas, the big picture, but she is most captivated by nature’s inhabitants. She is always observing the landscape around her whether it is her backyard, in her woods, a backcountry trail in a national park or a windswept marsh on a blustery cold winter day. She is an avid birder, but she finds all aspects of nature interesting subjects for her paintings; animals, plants, butterflies and even rocks, all the minute details of Nature that are sometimes overlooked, but are such an integral and necessary part of the whole.
Kelly is a trained graphic designer, turning to full time painting after receiving her certificate of Botanical Art & Illustration at the New York Botanical Garden in 2002. She has taught regularly at the New York Botanical Gardens and Wellesley College Botanical Gardens certificate programs. She is a sought after guest instructor at botanical art programs, traveling to teach workshops in both the US and abroad, including beautiful Ketchum, Idaho and Florence, Italy. She has shown extensively and has works in museums and private collections.
Radding is a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists, also serving on the board. She maintains membership in the American Society of Botanical Artists, the New England Society of Botanical Artists, and the American Women Artists.
To learn more about Kelly and view her artwork, please visit her website
Margaret Saylor
Margaret Saylor paints and draws highly detailed, textural botanical paintings. Her work captures the essence of a simple object or plant of our natural world, and presents it to the viewer as an exquisite jewel in a setting. She seeks to inform and entertain her audience through accurate botanical illustration, shape and form, a heightened sense of color, and a pinch of fanciful imagination.
Margaret earned a BFA in Communications Design at Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA in 1988. Trained as a graphic designer, Margaret worked for close to 10 years at William Fox Munroe, Inc., a graphic design firm specializing in package design. She returned to the painterly world in a quest for a hands-on, detail-oriented method of depicting the natural world. Her experience as a designer and illustrator have provided a solid foundation for further studies of plant life and botanical art techniques, and Margaret was awarded her 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, DE; GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, PA; and Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA, and other art centers and gardens.
Margaret is a member of the American Society of Botanical Artists, as well as the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators, and has exhibited with both groups. Working primarily in watercolor on vellum and egg tempera, Margaret specializes in mushrooms, fungi, and woodland plants. She works from her studio in Mt. Penn, PA.
To learn more about Margaret and view her artwork, please visit her website: