SciArt Magazine - All Issues | Page 10

SPOTLIGHT

Drawing on Science
A Peek Into the World of
Scientific Illustration

Human Immunodeficiency Virus by Alexey Kashpersky © 2013.
This cosmic-looking image of the HIV virus was created using a threedimensional molecular modeling program called cellPACK and Cinema 4D.
It won first prize in an international contest sponsored by CGSociety.

By Raphael Rosen
Contributor
Somewhere in the United States an artist is
picking up pencils and paper and walking into
a hospital operating room. Instead of creating
gesture drawings or painting a landscape, this
artist is looking over the shoulder of a thoracic
surgeon, taking notes and making sketches that
will become an image in a medical textbook or
a slide in a physician’s conference presentation.
Still lifes and naked models? Think instead of
scalpels, clamps, and human organs. Welcome
to the world of the science illustrator.
In this world, the paintbrush is just as
important as the microscope. Science
illustration encompasses not just medicine,
but paleontology, geology, biology, zoology,
astronomy, and anatomy. Almost all of the
various scientific subfields need professionals
who can communicate the nub of their
discoveries in a visual way.
And from the looks of the numbers and
activity of science illustrators, the state of
science illustration looks healthy. Peruse
the website of the Guild of Natural Science
Illustrators (GNSI), a group founded in 1968,
and you’ll notice that it has chapters in Illinois,
New England, California, upstate New York,
North Carolina’s Research Triangle, the Great
Lakes, Washington, D.C., and has recently
expanded across the Atlantic into Portugal. The

10

group sponsors an annual conference as well,
with a list of activities that would make any
SciArt aficionado drool. For instance, last year’s
conference—held in Bar Harbor, ME—featured
a tantalizing slate of classes including “Painting
Small Mammals,” “Floral Morphology,” “How
to Make Realistic-Looking Three-Dimensional
Plant Models,” “Preserving Specimens in
Resin,” “Sculpting Insects in Polymer and
Wire,” and “How to Paint a Kick-Ass Radish.”
One workshop in the 2012 conference taught
participants the ins and outs of creature
design, teaching illustrators how to combine
“zoological and paleontological illustration.”
The GNSI also publishes a quarterly journal,
as well as sponsoring educational workshops;
last year’s workshop in Ames, IA focused on
depicting slipper orchids in watercolor.
Another professional science illustration
organization—the Association of Medical
Illustrators—is even older. Established in 1945,
the AMI now has over 800 members on four
continents. Its members share information
about how to draw up contracts, set fees, use
Adobe Photoshop, and create different effects
using pen and ink. According to their website,
the AMI tries to be “key partners in the process
of scientific discovery, knowledge transfer, and
innovation, and to be recognized as the premier
global resource for promoting the power of

SciArt in America February 2014