Step Inside a Botanical Illustrator's Community Garden Plot!
Artist Gina Levantini shares the garden that inspires her cheerful vegetable illustrations (and the art tools she uses to make them).
Artist Gina Levantini makes her home on San Juan Island, a gorgeous island set off the northwest coast of Washington State in the Salish sea where it’s not uncommon to spot whales frolicking off-shore or spy a red fox stalking through a meadow. Gina is a full-time artist and the island’s flora and fauna provide inspiration for her nature focused art business, Fern in the Forest. She sells her work in person at the San Juan Island Farmer’s Market in Friday Harbor and at the Roche Harbor Artists Village, where her tomato washi tape (!!) drew me into her cute stand stocked with stickers, greeting cards, note pads, tote bags, and dish towels printed with her cheerful, whimsical and beautiful illustrations.
When I picked up a card illustrated with different colored heirloom carrots drawn in all their lovely wonky shapes, I knew it must have been drawn by a vegetable gardener—and I was right! Gina and I started chatting and she mentioned that she gardens at a plot in the San Juan Island Community Gardens.
I’m so happy to share the garden that inspires her vegetable illustrations and a great conversation with Gina who chats with us about her favorite illustration tools, her path to becoming a full-time artist, how she gets inspired, and what she was most excited to grow this year!
Your nature-themed illustrations caught my eye and made me wonder: how did your curiosity about the natural world develop?
I grew up in suburban/urban South Florida without much access to isolated, raw nature. Despite that, my mom always made a big effort to get us outside as much as possible. I spent every moment I could on the beach or in our suburban parks with short hiking trails trying to experience nature as much as I could.
I vividly remember visiting a friend in New Hampshire when I was 15 and hiking my first mountain, which now looking back was more like a big hill. It literally changed my life and confirmed that I wanted to prioritize being in nature in my life.
I had heard about the Appalachian Trail and through that learned about the Pacific Crest Trail. As soon as I did, I was hyper focused on it and I decided that’s what I’d do after I graduated high school! I completed that goal at 19 years old in 2015 and it completely changed my life.
When did your interest in gardening develop?
Once I realized that a big priority in my life was to be in nature, I sort of sandwiched gardening into that. I just knew that being in nature and around plants was my happy place. I remember attempting to grow carrots in the tiny 2’ x 2’ patch of dirt in front of our apartment unit separating our door from our neighbors’. I grew a singular 1-inch carrot and thought it was the coolest thing ever, haha!
Once I finished the Pacific Crest Trail I moved to Stehekin, WA and started growing things in containers on my doorstep. That evolved into some in-ground planting, then into me managing a garden for the bakery that I worked at. I was doing any gardening that I could with the spaces that I had!
I’ve had my sweet plot [in the San Juan Island Community Garden] for just over a year. I was so excited when a spot became available after not much waiting because that is certainly not always the case. The timing just worked out very well!
What was your plot like when you were first assigned it?
I was really lucky to inherit a raspberry and strawberry patch with my plot along with some good infrastructure (i.e. trellises, garden bed borders, etc.)! On the other side of things, I also inherited a tons of thistles and red deadnettle. It took many long, long days of weeding to get it to the point of amending and planting and I still am fighting the thistles to this day. Slowly, but surely, I’m winning the fight, though!
How have you planned out your plot?
I used a website I found online to plan my plot… and then I extremely loosely followed that. I have to admit I’m not a great planner in this sense, I kind of just wing it and am almost always behind in my planting!
Do you have any favorite tools that you like to use?
My hands are for sure my favorite tool! Partly because I really believe it’s the best and partly because I often forget to bring my tools to the garden, oops!
What do you like about gardening in a communal space?
I am so, so grateful to have been given a plot. I love anything that builds community and gives opportunities that we otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s also really wonderful to have access to so much knowledge right around me! I’ve asked my fellow gardeners for advice many times and everyone has been so happy to help. It’s a really wonderful community.
What are the edible plants are you most excited about growing this year ?
This year I’m most excited about my Music garlic! I got the seed garlic from a local gardener who is actually the president of the Farmer’s Market that I vend at every Saturday! It was my first time ever growing garlic and I can’t even tell you how much I loved it. Anything I can pull out of the ground is a favorite for me, then add in it being a beautiful plant and one of my favorite foods?! I’m so excited about it!
Do you grow cut flowers or medicinal plants, if so can you share some that you enjoy growing and why?
On the floral side of things, last year I grew a handful of varieties of dahlias which I LOVED. I got the tubers from another local gardener who was very sweet and threw in a few extra varieties for me! This year I’m growing zinnias and cosmos which have been so beautiful to have cut in the house. I also always grow borage and nasturtium to add to salads, but mainly for the bees.
My sister got married last September and I made her cake. I dried tons of edible flowers from the garden, flew them across the country and used them to decorate her wedding cake. It was so special!
Can you tell us about some art that was inspired by your vegetable garden?
So much of my artwork is inspired by my garden! Two greeting cards are coming to mind immediately, one is of heirloom tomato varieties and one is of heirloom carrot varieties. I did both originally in my sketchbook with watercolor and colored pencil and then turned them into greeting cards. I actually made these pieces when I first moved to Stehekin, before I had my garden. I got a Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalog in the mail and was so inspired I started to illustrate a lot of the varieties that I was seeing in there.
Since then I’ve done many, many illustrations inspired by the garden.
How did you get your start with illustration?
I’m lucky to have grown up in a very art-y family. My dad is a musician who dabbles in photography and my mom is a talented fine artist and a professional graphic designer. My childhood was filled with art, whether that was my dad teaching me guitar in the living room or making mosaics with my mom and sister.
I get asked this question often and I really couldn’t tell you when it “started”, luckily it was just always there. Now, both my sister and I are working artists!
Can you walk us through how your art goes from conception to completion?
My artwork almost always starts in my sketchbook. I’ll get an idea and sort of sketch it out, then I take a photo of that and bring it into Procreate on my iPad. I use that as a tool to flush out the composition, so I’ll trace my drawing and move bits around until I like the look of it. Then I trace that drawing onto watercolor paper and paint the final piece!
Occasionally I’ll just make something in my sketchbook and like it so much that I call it a day then and there.
What would your advice be for a gardener interested in trying their hand at nature illustration?
I think spending quality time with your plants is key! The more you stare at them the more you’ll learn how plants grow and what their composition is like…you’ll be more able to draw a plant from memory because you already understand how it generally grows!
Also remember that there’s a million ways to draw the same subject. Things don’t just have to be “realistic” to be good. Stylized art is unique and exciting. I made a fun, collaged garden journal a handful of years ago when I was in Stehekin to track what worked and didn’t work for me. It definitely helped me learn about timing of things and which varieties I was a fan of.
What are some of your favorite art tools?
My most used tool is probably my Strathmore mixed media sketchbook. Second to that is my iPad/the Procreate App. I use that to plan out pieces, format products, edit things… It's so useful. I’ve been using the same tubes of Winsor & Newton gouache for years so I have to shout that out, too!
Thank you, Gina, for sharing your garden and art with us! If you’d like your own stash of adorable washi tapes, stickers, stationary, dish towels and totes, you can shop Gina’s work online at Fern in the Forest (she also does commissions and wholesale!) and you can follow her on Instagram.
I am thrilled you are here! If you’d like to get future issues of The Garden Dish, please subscribe. It’s a wonderful small (but growing!) community of people who love to cultivate and tend the world around them and I am thankful you are here. And please do share the newsletter with anyone you think might also enjoy it! You can also pre-order my new cookbook Veggies for Breakfast: 100 Delicious Plant-Focused Recipes for Healthier Mornings (out on October 28th)!
Gina I love your work and how see you the world! Thanks for sharing your garden :)
I just bought some of those gorgeous greeting cards.