Cathy Johnson, sometimes known as Kate, has worked as a naturalist, writer, and freelance artist for the past 35 years, and was staff naturalist and contributing editor for Country Living magazine for 11 years. She was a contributing editor to the Artist's Magazine and Watercolor Magic (now Watercolor Artist) and has had a regular column in Personal Journaling magazine, where she wrote on a subject she feels passionately about -- realizing the importance of creativity in our lives. She has written and illustrated -- her own work and that of others -- for a number of national magazines, including Science Digest, Harrowsmith Country Life, Sports Afield, Country Journal, Muzzlelader, Women's History, Early American Life, Sketchbook, Woodworker, Woman's Day, Threads, Mother Earth News, National Wildlife Magazine, Sierra and others. Her writing and artwork have been included in a number of nature anthologies and art books.

She is passionate about journaling and sketching, as well, as her popular Artist's Journal Workshop suggests, and she runs a huge Facebook group online originating from that book She is very active on Facebook with a number of groups as well as her own professional page, here: https://www.facebook.com/Cathy-Johnson-Art-119899574740563/

She has written and illustrated 34 books, and contributed to a number of others, working with a variety of national publishing houses. Those include North Light/F&W, Time/Life, Sierra Club, Random House, Scholastic, Globe Pequot Press, Gibbs-Smith Publisher, Tehabi, Van Nostrand Reinhold, Walker Publications, Prentice-Hall Press, Penguin, Stackpole and others.

Many of these books have been published in editions overseas, as well, in Russia, Japan, Holland, France and England.

In 1993, she founded her own small publishing company, Graphics/Fine Arts Press, which primarily offers books of interest to the reenacting community or others interested in history and material culture.

She teaches online, offering a number of self-directed mini-classes on her website.

Her paintings are included in a number of private and corporate collections in this country and abroad, including Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO; F&W Publications/North Light Books, Cincinnati, OH; Early American Life Magazine, Harrisburg, PA; The Kansas City Life Insurance Co., Kansas City, MO; and Newcomers Funeral Home, Kansas City, MO.

Her original jewelry has also found its way overseas, to Scotland and Great Britain, and is included in the Images of the Archetype Collection in Glasgow, Scotland and her green man and fantasy paintings and sculptures are currently in a one-woman show online at http://www.greenmanreview.com/gallery-kate/index.html.

She has been a longtime member of the Author's Guild and the Costume Society of America. She was chosen Conservation Communicator of the Year by the Burroughs Audubon Society in l987, and won the Thorpe Menn Award for Creative Writing (AAUW) for The Naturalist's Cabin; Constructing the Dream (Viking Penguin) in 1992.

She offers a number of free tutorial videos on YouTube, as well, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/KateJosTube

She's married to the love of her life, Joseph Ruckman, and shares a small Victorian house with him and a varying number of cats.

Her website is http://cathyjohnson.info