Joanna Webster, of Strawberry Hill Studio, is a writer, artist, and illustrator who is passionate about encouraging greater interest in, and understanding of science and the world in which we live.
Spending 15 years as a scientific writer, Joanna has focused professionally on the communication of environmental, sustainability, community development and project planning and management issues, particularly those surrounding large civil infrastructure and mining projects.
Jo has lived and worked in several countries, including Australia where she grew up, the remote highland rainforests of Papua, Indonesia where she resided for more than eight years, and the high country of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. Her experiences living in these varied environments as well as traveling the globe cemented Jo’s particular love of plant life and fascination with the role that plants play in the human environment. They also led her to collaborate with anthropologist Dr. Carolyn Cook to write and publish (2016) an illustrated monograph on the ethnobotany of the Amungrne people of Papua, Indonesia.
Jo’s love of botany and drawing led her to immerse herself in the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Botanical Art and Illustration program in 2015. She likes to work with various media including quill and ink, watercolor, carbon dust, graphite, and color pencil. All artworks and illustrations are created from sight using physical specimens (occasionally with the support of her own photographs for reference when a work is likely to take a considerable length of time).
She holds a bachelor of science in botany, a bachelor of arts in journalism, and a graduate certificate in environmental management, all from the University of Queensland, Australia. She also holds a Certificate of Botanical Art and Illustration from the Denver Botanic Gardens.
