Christopher Montero's Portfolio

WELCOME TO THE PORTFOLIO OF CHRISTOPHER MONTERO!
My passion is to share amazing tropical ecology and spread awareness of its fragility and danger of destruction. My art has been used for educational and scientific purposes including posters, comic strips, and illustrations for books and magazines. It is my intention to balance artistic vision and scientific accuracy.

Email me with comments, booking inquiries, or if you would like to see my resume. Make sure you click the thumbnails to see larger images. Enjoy!

Black & White

Great Curassow male (Crax rubra) Ink on paper	Alston's mouse opossum (Micoureus alstoni) Ink on paper	Giant bird of paradise (Phenakospermum sp.) Ink on paper
Peccaries (Tayassu tajacu) Ink on paper	Sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx bilineata) Ink on paper	Umbrella bird (Cephalopterus glabricollis) Ink on scratchboard

Tayra (Eira barbara) chasing a Central American agouti (Dasyprocta punctata)
Ink on paper

White-nosed coatis playing (Nasua narica)
Ink on paper

Central American bullfrog (Leptodactylus pentadactylus)
Pencil on paper

Cantil (Agkistrodon bilineatus)
Pencil on paper

Color

Squirrel cuckoo (Piaya cayana)
Color pencil on paper

Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula) and Blue-gray tanager (Thraupis episcopus)
Color pencil on paper

Turquoise cotinga (Cotinga ridgwayi)
Color pencil on paper

Long-tailed weasel (Mustela frenata)
Color pencil on paper

Fer-de-lance (Bothrops asper)
Colored ink on paper

Masked tree frog (Smilisca phaeota)
Acrylic on clayboard

Common boa (Boa constrictor)
Mixed technique on illustration board

Book cover
Acrylic on canvas

Sketches

Sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus)	Great blue heron (Ardea herodias)	Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus)
Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta)	Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa)	Black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa)
Copan ruins I, Honduras	Coral reef wildlife, Belize	Copan ruins II, Honduras

Tropical Trivia

I teamed up with David Norman, author and biologist, to educate people about nature through a humorous comic strip. Published in the Costa Rican newspaper The Tico Times and Ranger Rick magazine (February 1998, Vol. 32, No. 2).

Click here to visit the
Tropical Trivia gallery!

Author

Chirripó: a journey to the magical mountain. This beautiful bilingual book is illustrated with photos by Juan José Pucci. Available here. (Fundación Neotrópica, 2001)

About the artist...

I am a Costa Rican naturalist. My enthusiasm for animals began with a large focus on reptiles, especially snakes, and expanded to mammals, birds, tropical plants, insects, and ecology and conservation in general (and it is still growing!).

Teaching and writing are other ways I share my passion about fauna and ecology. As a naturalist guide at La Selva and Las Cruces biological stations in Costa Rica, I worked with tourists and students. Currently I co-teach the annual Tropical Rainforest Field Studies course for the Sierra Institute in Belize and Guatemala.

I reside in Washington State with my wife Corina, another enthusiastic biologist. We travel to Costa Rica as much as possible to stay in touch with the amazing tropical biodiversity - an unlimited source of inspiration for us.