Hi! I’m Natalie, a MA Illustration student who enjoys to depict all kinds of different landscapes seen in nature in my own way through my small sketchbook. I chose Environmental Design specifically because of this, I have a great passion for the outdoors & nature in general, I really like to go on long walks with my dog through various nature reserves & country parks near me back at home. I have always found environmental design & the relationship between nature & humans especially interesting, the development & change throughout time would also be very insightful to research. Added are a couple examples of the way I work:
Two of my illustation works (2024)
I think that learning about the wider world will be a great eye opener for me as I have never left the country, so studying the many different ways of which people work (with materials, processes, etc.) interests me greatly. I haven’t delved too much into the subject of environmental design vs the designers/makers themselves & how much we effect the planet, so I believe I will gain a lot of insight throughout the course & it will help me relate this theme back into my own work & it will give me a better understanding of how important design is within the environment & how it has been affected over history.
My hometown is not too far away from Edinburgh, I am from Newcastle – it’s around an hour & a half on the train. Like I mentioned before, I enjoy to explore as many country parks as I can around the north east – it’s my main inspiration for my illustrative work. It allows me to experiment with many different compositions & materials & processes, I love to capture the wildlife of these environments as well to truly encapsulate the scene itself.
For next week, we are asked to bring along a product or an image of a 
good piece of environmental design. I researched “Washed Ashore”, a US based non-profit organisation that produce large ocean life sculptures using the entirety of washed up debris on west coast beaches. This contrast of brightly coloured, positive sculptures made of garbage & debris is very interesting & their work has made a big statement on the state of oceans in recent years. Their work has been toured across the US, appearing in Sea World Parks, San Fransisco Zoo & many more.
(Pictured left) Cleo the Clownfish (2017), Washed Ashore.
(Pictured right) Stella the Seahorse (2021), Washed Ashore.
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Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Washed Ashore. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washed_Ashore.
Washed Ashore. (n.d.). Washed Ashore – Art to Save the Sea. [online] Available at: https://www.washedashore.org/.
Frost, E. (n.d.). Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea | Smithsonian Ocean. [online] ocean.si.edu. Available at: https://ocean.si.edu/conservation/pollution/washed-ashore-art-save-sea.
