Tropical Botanic Artists

Kathleen Konicek-Moran

In 2006, Kathleen Konicek-Moran did something that changed her professional life: she took a watercolor botanical art class at Fairchild Tropical Gardens. Before that, she was a writer, editor and professor of writing and critical thinking. Since 2006, she has drawn and painted over 200 plants; illustrated trail guides, trail signs and textbooks; and participated in solo and group shows in Florida and Massachusetts. She has a series of herb and vegetable portraits useful for the interior decorating market in a permanent exhibit in a Hartford, CT restaurant. She won a first prize in a juried competition for one of her Everglades butterfly portraits. She loves portraying plants, and loves botanic art and its long and glorious history, about which she gives talks for garden clubs and other plant societies. She especially likes botanical art that makes her get out into the field to find rare and endangered plants and plant-dependent animals (like butterflies) - or into people's gardens to paint garden portraits on commission. Her main medium is watercolor, but she also works in pencil, colored pencil and pen and ink.

Kathleen was an active member of the Tropical Botanic Artists from 2011 - 2015.