Drawing Inspiration from the Reserve: Meet Donna Letterese
Meet Donna Letterese, one of Bloedel Reserve’s 2026 Community Creatives. An illustrator, educator, and nature journaler, Donna has called Kitsap County home since 2020 and draws endless inspiration from the forests, shorelines, ferry rides, and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
“I really love it here,” she says. “I love exploring and sketching. Since living in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve come to love Urban Sketching and Nature Journaling.”
Donna studied Illustration at California State University, Fullerton, and much of her MFA work centered on the forests of Washington during 2020 and 2021. Alongside creating art and stories, she has taught adults and children since 2010, focusing on cartooning, nature drawing, botanical art, and self-publishing and bookmaking.
Her work combines graphite, ink, watercolor, colored pencil, and mixed media, often blending realistic botanical studies with imaginative storytelling. She’s especially drawn to materials that can be used outdoors while observing directly from life. Recently, she’s been experimenting with natural pigments like tea, coffee, and matcha alongside sepia-toned inks to create nature-inspired studies and Artists’ Books.
“Using natural pigments feels like I am creating a closer connection with the natural world,” Donna explains.
At the Reserve, Donna has spent time observing both subtle and dramatic seasonal changes throughout the landscape. From the Gunnera at Mid Pond to the Paulownia tree in the Arrival Garden, as well as Canada geese, otters, ducks, and eagles, her nature journaling practice has become both artistic inspiration and storytelling research.
“I have always wanted to create stories based on areas like the moss garden and the woodsy trails,” she says. “Spending this time at the Reserve has given me even more fantastical ideas than I even had to begin with.”
Her current projects include nature journals and Artists’ Books inspired by the Reserve, as well as black-and-white ink comics and narrative illustrations that blend realistic botanical studies with fantasy characters and imagined worlds rooted in the Reserve’s landscapes.
You can explore Donna’s work at drawdvl.com and follow her on Instagram at @drawdvl.
