Botanical prints or illustrations date back hundreds of years and were found in books called herbals, which recorded drawings of plant specimens used for medicinal purposes.
Today they continue to be studied and are prized as works of art. Many are on display in exhibits such as those found at The Hunt Institute, part of Carnegie Mellon University, which maintains over 30,000 botanical illustrations including watercolors, drawings and prints.
Did you know that there are a variety of public domain beautiful botanical prints available online? This means that they are free to download and use as you like. I love the way they look and complied a list so you don’t have to.
First let me give you a few ideas of what you can do with them:
- Frame in black frame (gold or other) hang on your wall in a collage or horizontal line.
- Print on card stock and make gift tags or thank you notes.
- Use as your laptop wallpaper.
- Transfer to fabric and make pillows. Click here to see a previous post where I made pillows with botanical prints
- Make labels for your handmade gifts.
As a bonus I am adding links to some cards I made that you can simply print on card stock and cut to use as note cards for yourself or print several as a gift for a friend.
Simply click on the picture for a .pdf of the print.
Here is a list of great resources where you can print your own botanical prints.
About Patti Estep
I love botanical prints. They are so classy looking. thanks for sharing your resources.
Thank you so much for sharing these… I’ve been wanting to hang some botanical prints in my house but everything I see at the stores is too expensive. This will be a great way to get it done! 🙂
Hi, I am a designer making an exhibition at a cider production farm. We need some beautiful illustrations with regards to apples & the changing seasons. Is this something you could help us with?
Hi Jo,
I can only direct you to the botanical illustrations in the post. I know there is at least one apple in the Missouri Botanical Gardens link on plate 35.
Good luck,
Patti