​​In spring of 2025, I began experimenting with eco-print techniques as an additional step in botanical illustration. Eco-printing allows for the transfer of a plant’s color and pattern onto paper without the use of synthetic dyes or harsh chemicals, relying instead on a reaction between heat, metal and the plant’s natural tannins. This process results in one-of-a-kind monoprints with frequently unexpected results, the organic and expressive marks of which I use to dictate the resulting composition. In this series each piece portrays the subject twice; an exact rendering suspended in the impression made by that very plant. This offers the viewer an exciting gateway to the appreciation for aesthetic and sustainable printing techniques while remaining scientifically accurate for education and plant identification purposes.

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My art practice re-embeds the artist's subjectivity within the lineage of botanical science without compromising observable facts. My role in illustration is often collaborative with the plant itself as I select, compose, and respond to what each specimen reveals in its ecoprint.

The transfer of the plant’s pigments and tannins onto paper is both a method and a metaphor for my intersection of science illustration with artistic expressionism.

In its own way, ecoprinting follows the specimen-first approach of science visualization, providing the accurate morphology and clarity that serves identification and record with an added element of surprise. Leaves and flowers are given the chance to represent themselves, leaving marks and chemical signatures without interpretive distortion. Free of the clinical sterility often seen in canonical botanic works, my process embraces shifts in tone and unexpected mordant reactions that capture each specimen in a particular place and time. From thereon, each piece is a recorded conversation with the plant's own record, honoring the say it had in its own representation.