“NZ bird artist Melissa Boardman conveys her love for the native birds of New Zealand through her distinctive gouache illustrations. She draws on her fascination with nature and own experiences in the wild to create her bold and descriptive depictions of native birds. Melissa offers a range of thoughtful products including art prints, stationery products and giftable accessories.”
Hello! I’m Melissa and it’s fair to say I have a healthy obsession with birds, in particular our native birds. My life revolves around them: I hang out with them, volunteer with them, photograph them, illustrate them and create thoughtful products that showcase how awesome they are. Oh and I talk about them, a lot.
My happy place is in amongst nature. I love walking through native forest, absorbing the sights and sounds of the natural world. I find so much inspiration in nature and feel completely at home with the birds.
My mission is to share my love and enthusiasm for native New Zealand birds, to inspire others to become invested in nature and ultimately be more passionate about protecting our precious wildlife and natural spaces.
As a full time artist, illustration is the core of what I do. I create original illustrations based on my own experiences and photographs and I transform my artwork into thoughtful and practical items like art prints, calendars, greeting cards, tea towels, washi tape and more. I also create more design focused items like enamel pins. I offer my full range of products through my website as well as selected gift shops and seasonal pop ups.
I love collaborating with like-minded people and companies. I’m always keen to create custom illustrations or designs to adorn different products.
A big part of what I do is sharing insights, images and videos of our native birds on social media. I absolutely love sharing my experiences in nature and all the incredible things I learn about native birds along the way and really enjoy connecting with other nature minded people.
Often when I’m out and about watching birds I see them do something that makes me want to capture that moment somehow and share it. Photography allows me to do that to an extent, but illustrating birds allows me time to stop and consider how I want to portray the bird, what features to highlight and how best to show the birds as they appear in real life. I always want to be true to the bird that I’m illustrating, that’s why my illustrations are natural and honest.
My process begins with photography. I use my own photographs for reference and have an extensive catalogue of bird photos that I refer to when finding inspiration for a new illustration. I spend a lot of time observing birds and learning about their distinct behaviours and personalities so I can portray them accurately in my art.
In my artwork, gouache is my medium of choice and I use it for all of my physical illustrations. I love the matteness, flatness and smoothness of gouache and it perfectly suits my bold and descriptive illustrative style. Each illustration is created with tiny individual brush strokes - I use the smallest brushes available.
On a personal note, I enjoy peace and quiet and try to escape into nature as much as possible. I live in Lake Ōkareka, a small lakeside town just outside of Rotorua and work from my home studio. I can be a bit of a homebody and love spending time with my two indoor tortoiseshell cats Crouton and Biscotti, but equally I love getting out to be amongst the birds and the trees.
I’ve carried a camera with me for most of my life, as a kid I would take a film camera with me everywhere I went, snapping photos of animals or anything that interested me. I studied photography as well as design at university and loved developing my own film and printing my own photos. I still carry a camera with me daily, but nowadays my focus is on birds.
