When Madison Safer was a child, she could often be found outdoors exploring the small worlds found under rocks in her back yard. 

When her family moved to a small town in New Hampshire, she was delighted by the tall pine trees and ferns growing everywhere.  Since it was hard to capture what she saw in photographs, she used watercolors to keep a record of what was around her.

And so it began – painting as a study tool – diagrams and sketches of bugs, mushrooms, flowers and plants. While studying at the Montserrat College of Art, she became interested in the narrative style of illustration. This enabled her to not only replicate natural phenomenon, but to convey the sensations of what it was like to be in the woods on the page.

Since then, she has used illustration as a teaching practice for herself as well as a way of telling hidden stories of what really happens in the forest when humans are not looking.

When I’m browsing images online, Madison Safer illustrations often catch my eye. Her rich colors and cozy style, whimsical and nostalgic, transport me to a comforting storybook world. I love the strong sense of home and safety that comes across. 

Though her pictures are generally geared toward the children’s market, they’re enjoyed by people of all ages. After all, the child in all of us wants to believe in a world where foxes forage for chanterelles, pigs tend flower gardens, and squirrels harvest corn.

In addition to her storybook art, Madison, a practicing herbalist, creates botanical/nature illustrations. She is keen on using her art to educate and instruct. With subjects like edible flowers, composting, mushroom foraging, and recipes for herbal teas and tinctures, she blends her love of natural science with creative interpretation. Rather than being hyper-realistic, her plant depictions are created through the lens of personal impression.

 I really like the process of synthesis. What’s exciting for me about the botanical work that I do is how you’re able to look at something and then process it through your creativity, your stylist decisions, and your medium and then it comes out not as a replication of what you’re seeing, but a reflection. 

For me, I find it very thrilling to see the differences in how it may look realistically in the natural world vs. how it comes across on paper. 

It doesn’t have to be perfect, and in a lot of ways, painting becomes a kind of symbol. If things aren’t perfect, they’re still recognizable. I really like the process of how your creativity can transform a plant or object into what you see in your mind’s eye . . . You’re seeing it the way you’re feeling it, and there’s something really special about that.

Last year Madison published her debut picture book, Before Music: Where Instruments Came From, written by Annette Bay Pimentel (Abrams, 2022). 

It’s about the natural origins of instruments, and it takes a look at how we’re able to take found objects, like mud or wood, and transform them from raw material to an instrument. It’s very interesting – the author did a fabulous job of explaining things on a very understandable level. Part of it is narrative, and another part of it is almost like an encyclopedia of natural instruments. 

She’s currently working on another book about making natural pigments. When it comes to children’s books, she counts Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series as well as The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame as influential. Other favorites include Beatrix Potter, Tasha Tudor, Elsa Beskow, Maud Lewis and Yuri Vasnetsov.

She hopes to continue making books – whether field guides, herbal references, or stories about the natural world – accessible to a variety of people.

These days, in addition to creating children’s books and botanical art, she works in a library and teaches at a nearby college. She enjoys the interaction with students and the stimulation she receives from exchanging ideas and perspectives with them.

As far as process, she uses a variety of mediums, starting with a base of watercolor, followed by layers of traditional or acryla gouache, adding finishing textures and details with ink, crayon, or colored pencils. 

She’s inspired by European art (especially Russian folk art), Jewish paper cuttings, quilt patterns, wood carvings, old 50’s field guides, vintage Victorian postcards, the flora and fauna of New England, and “the warmth of a fire after a very cold day.” 

When she is not napping or drawing, she can be found drinking tea, practicing her challah braid, or stealing flowers (she is happiest in a forest full of mushrooms). Herbalism helps her to ground herself throughout the day and connect with the natural world, informing her desire to live seasonally.

Visit Madison Safer’s Official Website to purchase prints, notecards, postcards, stickers and bookmarks. More at her Instagram and tumblr blog, where you can read notes and backstories about some of the illustrations shown here. For custom commissions, contact her directly: madisonsafer@gmail.com.

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