When Erin Hunter was nine, her great-great aunt Helen gave her a copy of the Reader's Digest Guide to North American Wildlife. Fascinated by the detailed color illustrations of flowers and insects and animals, Erin read all 559 pages. Her first ventures into science and illustration started with that book, where she checked off the plants and wildlife of her own backyard and drew birds in the margins.

Trading Monterey County’s vineyards and Pacific waves for almond trees and sunflower fields, Erin eventually headed inland and earned a B.A. in graphic design with a minor in Spanish at California State University, Chico. After graduation and two years as a full-time graphic designer, she packed two suitcases and flew to New York City. Settling in Brooklyn, Erin worked assorted day jobs and freelance design projects to pay for night classes at the Art Students’ League and frequent trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Between subway rides and adventures, Erin spent time simply sitting on park benches, observing the action around her and sketching the characters of the city.

Two snowy winters and a cross-country road trip later, Erin returned to the California coast and the Monarch butterflies, wild irises and scurrying lizards that captivated her as a child. She enrolled in the prestigious science illustration program at University of California, Santa Cruz, completed internships with leading scientific and consumer organizations, and today specializes in entomological and botanical illustration. Erin also leads field sketching workshops and has taught botanical illustration and field sketching at UC Santa Cruz. When she's not painting, teaching or working at the computer, she can be found puttering in her backyard garden or hiking in coastal forests. Her dog-eared copy of the Reader's Digest Guide to North American Wildlife sits prominently on her desk.

Erin is a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and the California Native Plant Society. She has worked with major museums, small businesses and noted media outlets nationwide, including:

• Sally Ride Science—San Diego, CA
• California Academy of Sciences—San Francisco, CA
• Smithsonian Institute/United States Department of Agriculture—Washington, DC
• Monterey Bay Aquarium—Monterey, CA
• MEarth/Hilton Bialek Habitat—Carmel, CA
• Sylvan Dell Publishing—Mount Pleasant, SC
• Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History—Pacific Grove, CA
• Bay Nature Magazine—Berkeley, CA
• Renewable Fuel Products—San Francisco, CA
• LiP Magazine—Oakland, CA
• Renee Brincks, Writer and Editor—San Francisco, CA
• Pacific Puzzleworks—Oakland, CA
• 831 Magazine—Monterey, CA
• Center for Integrated Marine Technology—Santa Cruz, CA
• iPop/Madison Park Greetings—Seattle, WA
• Nancy Owens Landscape Architecture—New York, NY
• Elliot Smith Contemporary Art Gallery—New York, NY

Erin's artwork has been featured in the following shows:

• Illustrating Nature—group show at Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, 2006
• Solo show at Cafe Limelight in Santa Cruz—February 2008
• Filoli Annual Botanical Art Exhibition—paintings featured in 2008, 2009, 2010 shows
• Solo show at Vino 100 in Chico—summer 2008 and summer 2009
• Solo show at Cafe Lumiere—fall 2008
• Collaborative show with Ian Harlow Williams at Ol"Factory Cafe—January 2009
• Solo show at Lula's Chocolates in Carmel—March 2010 (ongoing)
• The Art of Nature—group show at Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, 2011
• Guild of Natural Science Illustrators Annual Exhibit, 2011
• Nature's Jewels—Northern California chapter of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, fall 2011
• California Native Plant Society Conservation Conference—2012 Botanical Art Exhibition