Mimi Osborne
Watercolor Artist
Mimi Osborne moved to San Francisco in June of 1957, after graduating from Stanford University in Architecture. She worked with Osborne and Stewart Architects until 1979 on a variety of projects - site assessment, landscape plant selection, audio-visual presentation and managing Canessa Gallery. In 1979 she joined the Dolphin Club and started swimming the San Francisco Bay with her husband Dan and she's been swimming in the Bay ever since.
Soon thereafter in 1980 she became cook and manager of the San Francisco Ecology Center Lunch Cafe, continuing in that position for two years while beginning to work as an Illustrator. Since that time, she has worked for a variety of clients - Smith & Hawken, Sunset Garden Publications, Aris Press, Heyday Press, and more.It was in 1987 Mimi began working with Renee at Shepherd’s Garden Seeds as a botanical illustrator until 1996. When Renee’s Garden was founded in 1998, she created and still creates the watercolor variety portraits on the front of Renee’s Garden packets from the photos we take of them in the trial garden. Renee found Mimi through a mutual friend after seeing and admiring the work she did for Smith & Hawken and Sunset Gardens.
Mimi especially enjoys drawing while in her garden where she lives in Sonoma. You can find her there most weekends planting many of our seed varieties with her children and grandchildren.
