I’m excited to share that, on March 15, the U.S. Mint will release a new commemorative coin that I designed. The theme of the coin is Breast Cancer Awareness, and surcharges will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The design for this coin was selected through a national competition, open to all U.S. residents and citizens. There will be a clad, a silver, and a gold coin available, all with the same obverse and…

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Next month, on Thursday January 11, I’m giving a presentation about the field of science illustration and about a project I’ve been working on for the last couple years. I’ll be including many of my illustrations as well as a handful of illustrations by other illustrators. The talk is for the local naturalist group Nature Guelph; it is free and open to the public. Details are here and the description is below. All are invited. In this image-filled presentation,…

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The autumn 2017 issue of Atlantic Salmon Journal included a complex two-page illustration I created to help explain the life cycle of Atlantic salmon and how Atlantic Salmon Federation biologists catch smolt (young salmon), outfit them with transmitters, release and then track them in order to learn why so many never return to three Gulf of St. Lawrence rivers. Tracking Smolt illustration © Emily S. Damstra The illustration is entirely digital. As with any commission, I love…

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I’ve added over a dozen new illustrations to my Fine Art America site, so these are now available as prints (and on other merchandise). There is also a link to the commerce site at my Shop page. Here are some of my illustrations available as prints.

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Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working with Shelagh Smith, a horticultural therapist, to bring her vision of illustrated garden activity signs to life. It was a challenge to create illustrations with enough detail to attract attention, but simple enough to be understood from a distance.  I enjoyed going outside to use the plants in my own garden as reference material on occasion. The signs are now ready and available to be put to…

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Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working with Shelagh Smith, a horticultural therapist, to bring her vision of illustrated garden activity signs to life. It was a challenge to create illustrations with enough detail to attract attention, but simple enough to be understood from a distance.  I enjoyed going outside to use the plants in my own garden as reference material on occasion. The signs are now ready and available to be put to…

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We all have pet peeves, even though there’s a lot going on in the world that makes them pretty insignificant. While acknowledging that there are many more important things in life, I write this post about my own personal illustration pet peeve in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, it’ll make a little teeny difference. Here goes: I love butterflies. They’re one of my favorite subjects to illustrate and one of my favorite sights in nature. To…

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Last year, journalist Dan Egan contacted me to ask about licensing some of my fish illustrations for a book he was writing about the Great Lakes. This spring, the product of his hard work is out on bookshelves, and I made a point to read it since it sounded fascinating and – yes – it contains three of my fish illustrations. Alewife illustration © Emily S. Damstra The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (publisher’s synopsis…

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