Julian Plum
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julianplum.com
Julian Plum
@julianplum.com
1.7K followers 840 following 870 posts
Picture book illustrator working in gouache! he/they 🏳️‍⚧️ 🖌️ 🌿

WHOSE TREE IS THIS (Singer, Lerner, S '26)
THE HOUSE THAT FEELS LIKE ME (Allen, LBYR, F '26)
Rep'd by Naomi Davis @ BookEnds Literary

💌 contact: [email protected]
🎨 portfolio: julianplum.com
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julianplum.com
did some warmup paintings from requests over on tumblr and pulled out this little cedar waxwing eating rose hips! gouache in my sketchbook is so fun.

#art #sketchbook #gouache #kidlitart
A gouache illustration of a cedar waxwing, a brown-and-white bird with dramatic dark eye feathers, perched sideways on a branch full of bright red rose hips.
November 20, 2025 at 7:56 PM
julianplum.com
Artists! Qrp:

✨ the first piece you did in 2025
✨ your favourite piece of the year
✨ your most popular piece of the year
✨ your most recent piece
A snowy painting of a landscape in the late afternoon. A covey of white-feathered willow partridge look over the landscape at a group of geese taking off from a near-frozen pond. Trees cast blue shadows over the white snow. An intricate painting of a green frog, half out of a pond, looking up at the stars. The frog isn't fully developed yet, and emerges from a cross-section of a pond full of eggs, tadpoles, and lacy pondweed. It clings to a mossy bank full of cattails. A golden mayfly hangs delicately above. In the shadows stalks a heron. A shimmering school of small silver fish surround a glowing pearl. A golden-furred jackalope with glowing antlers stares, starry-eyed, at the viewer. Stars burst around it on a dark blue ground.
November 19, 2025 at 10:59 PM
julianplum.com
💕🍓🍒🫖🍵🌈 Tea // gouache on hot press paper // 18"x24"

the companion piece to T, a still life painted in my dining room of a feast I made for my spouse, and an excuse to create some queer joy and softness

#art #queer #gouache
Bright, warm, colorful still life of a table set cheerfully for breakfast with cherries, strawberries, tea, biscuits, and a green glass vase full of pink peonies. Small rainbows of light paint everything in the scene.
November 14, 2025 at 2:05 PM
julianplum.com
🪻🌼🐝🪶🌿💕 // early establishers // spread from Gardening for Biodiversity by the Wild Seed Project // gouache on hot press paper

#art #picturebooks #nativeplants
Intricate gouache painting with a swirling mass of native northeast plants, creatures, and wildflowers. From top left: a gray birch stand with one tree in the mid-ground, its branch stretching across the frame. On a twig sits a grasshopper sparrow eating a grasshopper. Fading sundial lupine going to seed sways below, its leaves tangling with the leaves of yellow partridge pea. Sideoats grama arcs gracefully across the bottom, and bright pink corydalis sways above. At the bottom right, a clump of narrow-leaved mountain mint is pollinated by wasps. Hoary vervain with clumps of purple flowers grows above.
November 11, 2025 at 4:04 PM
julianplum.com
makin my way downtown
November 8, 2025 at 11:31 PM
julianplum.com
🌸🌱🐝🌿🍂🪻 // sunlight scavengers // spread from Gardening for Biodiversity by the Wild Seed Project // gouache on hot press paper

realized I hadn't posted the art from one of the coolest projects I've ever done, so I'm starting that today! plant facts in the comments :)

#art #botanicalillustration
Gouache painting of a sunlit forest floor covered in a verdant mass of early-spring flowering plants: virginia bluebells spill over onto a groundcover carpet of tiny pink spring beauty flowers. Large-flowered bellwort grows in the shade of a lacy New York fern. Yellow bell-shaped leatherwood flowers dangle over bright red eastern newts in the red eft stage, and puffy clusters of white baneberry flowers grow toward the early leaves of a buckeye tree. Spring beauty miner bees gather pink pollen in the foreground.
November 7, 2025 at 5:26 PM
julianplum.com
Hello #kidlitartpostcard day! I'm Julian, a queer 🏳️‍⚧️ picture book illustrator working in gouache. I've climbed out of the final art mines to wave around a little flag that says "let me illustrate a book about frogs or bugs!"

🌌 julianplum.com
💌 [email protected]

#kidlitart #picturebooks #art 🐸 🌿
Gouache painting in lush dark green and blue featuring a cross-section of a pond at night. A green harlequin-patterned frog with a hint of tadpole tail climbs half out of the water into the cattails, looking at the stars. In the darkness lurks a taloned heron foot. The water is full of tadpoles, pond weed, insect larvae, and frog eggs. A single bright mayfly hangs on a cattail leaf above the frog's head. Text below reads JULIAN PLUM | Represented by Naomi Davis at BookEnds Literary, julianplum.com
November 6, 2025 at 5:26 PM
julianplum.com
This isn't precisely kidlit but I did paint this Destroying Angel for a mushroom-themed market I helped organize. First time using gold leaf!

#kidlitart
Gouache painting of a white destroying angel mushroom growing through a mouse skull among greenery: partridgeberry and heal-all. A gold-leaf halo glows behind the mushroom's cap.
October 31, 2025 at 2:00 AM
julianplum.com
hello the fall sticker for Patreon is live and if you'd like it you can get it!! This lil guy glows in the dark AND brings you a little luck while they do it. stick one on your water bottle to lightly unsettle your enemies!

get them here --> patreon.com/plumorchard

gouache on hot press paper
Gouache painting of a brown-and-honey jackalope on a dark blue background. The jackalope's antlers are a glowing yellow and are draped in stars. There are stars in its one showing eye.
October 22, 2025 at 2:45 PM
julianplum.com
Got to do a presentation on prehistory last night for a local event (covered just the Precambrian, so part 1 of 13!) and a friend got this picture of a slide about the Hadean that's frankly too real. Also I did not know I was doing such a Gay Little Stance. it was a blast tho!
Photo of Julian in front of a slide reading only "Earth is a hellacape!". He is doing a gay little stance while talking, flipped wrist and leg up and all.
October 21, 2025 at 7:17 PM
julianplum.com
Not so much a screenshot as a snapshot but these are the lines for a portfolio piece about tidepools 🦀🪸🐚 real excited to paint all those anemones and rocks!
Photograph of a blue-lined sketch with a tide pool in the foreground and some kids and their teacher exploring another tide pool in the background
October 15, 2025 at 6:54 PM
julianplum.com
It's #portfolioday!!

I'm Julian, a queer 🏳️‍⚧️ illustrator from the foggy Finger Lakes of Upstate NY. I work in traditional gouache & promise I know colors that aren't green. I'm rep'd by Naomi Davis @ BookEnds Literary!

🌿 julianplum.com
🐌 [email protected]

#kidlitart #picturebooks #illustration
A lush, intricate gouache painting featuring many leaves in different colors and textures, plus native birds, insects, flowers, and seeds. A gouache painting featuring a grasshopper sparrow sitting among a riot of pastel wildflowers. Behind it a gray birch reaches into a blue sky. A crop from a painting featuring a windswept brown-haired girl gently holding an egg, looking up in the direction of the wind at the legs of a crane taking off above her. Gouache painting featuring a cross-section of a garden: above the earth, radish leaves are covered in ladybugs; below the earth, radishes, roots, and earthworms are visible in the dirt.
October 14, 2025 at 3:04 PM
julianplum.com
Look who emerged! They've been tucked away in my garden for weeks now, changing slowly.
A newly-emerged monarch butterfly with wings still straightening clings to the seed pods of hairy beardtongue. A newly-emerged monarch butterfly clinging to a plant spreads its wings
October 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
julianplum.com
This is not an aesthetic photo but I have made pawpaw custard and it's the best thing I've ever made
Top-down photo of a batch of pastry cream cooking in a pot with yellow pawpaw puree in a vessel beside it
October 3, 2025 at 1:27 AM
julianplum.com
I'm all set up for my fave show of the year, which is of course Ithaca's Applefest!! squeezed in time to make a glow in the dark painting 👀 making these lil ones is such a nice break from more complicated picture book stuff!
A photo of a lot of small framed gouache paintings with a rabbit, a snake, some bloodroot, and lady slippers. A photo of a framed gouache painting of a jackalope dripping in stars on a navy background. The frame is painted navy and embellished with gold.
September 26, 2025 at 4:13 PM
julianplum.com
I know a lot of folks do Peachtober! The prompt lists are very cute!
An illustrated list of art prompts by @furrylittlepeach. In order: 01 Acorn 02 Kite 03 Slug 04 Gingham 05 Poppy 06 Ring 07 Strawberry 08 Leaf 09 Rope 10 Critter 11 Seagull 12 Bark 13 Marble 14 Brush 15 Aquarium 16 Hatch 17 Whistle 18 Toad 19 Melon 20 Truck 21 Snowflake 22 Web 23 Paper 24 Spots 25 Stripes 26 Bear 27 Axe 28 Button 29 Sour 30 Whisker 21 Ghost @Peachtober 2025 #Peachtober25
September 26, 2025 at 2:54 AM
julianplum.com
spotted in the wild: @kslivensky.bsky.social 's book!! This was at my local tiny library and the librarian told me "I tried to match the faces the rock makes it but looked too scary, so I settled for a nice smile." they made all the bits themselves and it's SO CUTE

#kidlit
September 23, 2025 at 8:04 PM
julianplum.com
Updated portfolio with one of the coolest projects I did: The Wild Seed Project's 2025 planting guide! I got to illustrate the cover, spots, and six spreads all featuring native plant communities. Altogether painted ~80 native species!

→ julianplum.com/the-wild-see...

#kidlitart #sciart #gouache
A highly-detailed lush green gouache painting featuring a riot of color and leaf texture on a dark green background. It features stylized, accurate Northeastern US plants and animals, including pink eastern wahoo, a speckled wood thrush, goldenrod, and many other native species.
September 16, 2025 at 2:17 PM
julianplum.com
Hello, my local pals! If you're around this Friday from 5–8pm and live in or around Ithaca, NY, come out to the opening of my art show in the CAP ArtSpace on the Commons! It's my first-ever solo show, focused entirely on my picture book work, and there will be snacks. Also there will be art!
Graphic featuring a bright repeat pattern of overlapping oak leaves and branches. A blue jay and a squirrel are hidden among the leaves looking at brushy text which reads PAGE TURNS: The Art of Picture Books.
September 3, 2025 at 4:16 PM
julianplum.com
The garden is enjoying this languid August heat!! And so am I!!
Photograph of a bountiful technicolor harvest of cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers
August 24, 2025 at 5:51 PM
julianplum.com
as promised: witch's hat mushrooms, wood sorrel, eastern newt (red eft stage) // gouache on hot press paper
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#art #sciart #gouache #traditionalart #kidlitart
A close-up gouache painting of glistening red witch's hat mushrooms with pointed tips, growing in a patch of heart-leaved wood sorrel. A little bright red newt meanders under the mushrooms.
August 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
julianplum.com
A lil collection of life photos recently 🩷 times is scary but there are sunsets and coneflowers
Photo of two ducks swimming in a sunlight clear creek Photo of a pink and blue cotton-candy sunset over a mundane parking lot Photo of an award ribbon for an Award of Distinction from an art fair over several gouache paintings in frames Photo, cropped close, of a coneflower with lilac-pink petals and a burnt orange center.
July 31, 2025 at 8:09 PM
julianplum.com
It's official!! My debut illustrated picture book by the incomparable Marilyn Singer comes out Spring 2026 and I'm SO excited for y'all to see it!! The team at Lerner has been just incredible!
Screenshot of a Publisher's Weekly post. The relevant text is "LERNER/MILLBROOK Millbrook press steps up to the plate with... and Whose Tree Is This? Poems About the Mighty Oak and Its Companions by Marilyn Singer, illus. by Julian Plum, centered on an oak tree and all the different creatures that depend on it."
July 30, 2025 at 2:40 PM
julianplum.com
🌕🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟 // swallowtail shiners // gouache on hot press paper
A shoal of silver-blue swallowtail shiners, small minnows, surround a shining orb in the top left corner of the painting. Their scales shine with yellow light.
July 29, 2025 at 9:18 PM
julianplum.com
🐸🪷🌿🌊 / The Fool / gouache on hot press paper

Things have been so wild that I've missed posting about this! This painting lives at Valkarie Gallery as part of a group show Arcana: Painting the Fates with so much amazing work! If you're in Denver go check it out!

#art #illustration #tarot
Gouache painting in lush dark green and blue featuring a cross-section of a pond at night. A green harlequin-patterned frog with a hint of tadpole tail climbs half out of the water into the cattails, looking at the stars. In the darkness lurks a taloned heron foot. The water is full of tadpoles, pond weed, insect larvae, and frog eggs. A single bright mayfly hangs on a cattail leaf above the frog's head.
June 26, 2025 at 6:36 PM