About
Scope of the Conference
What can we expect at the GNSI 2010 conference?
This weeklong conference can be divided into components. Sunday,
July 11, is the day to register, settle in and socialize. There will be
a couple of field trips to choose from to get to know the area and other
conference-goers. Monday through Wednesday is the Core Conference and Thursday
through Saturday there are a gazillion workshops and field trips offered.
The
CORE CONFERENCE (Monday—Wednesday, July 12-14) promises to be packed with
exciting speakers and topics. We welcome back tried and true presenters
and look forward to getting to know new ones as well. For the digital folks,
the topics include Illustrator, Digital 3-D Art, web marketing, animation,
giclée prints and other topics! A few of the speakers include Rick Simonson,
Britt Griswold, Taina Litwak, Paul Mirocha, Ikumi Kayama and other illustrious
presenters.
On the traditional art track, you can look forward to hearing about native
Hawaiian plants, classical design systems, birds and drawings of Hawaii,
evolution books. The presenters will include Tina Fuller, Kristy Bruznak,
Tamara Clark, Doug Pratt, Kapi Monoyios and Paul Brinkman.
The mini-workshops are back by popular demand! These are 2-hour sessions
where the participants get hands-on experience with the chosen topic. Look
for some big names and fun topics like Peggy Macnamara presenting watercolor
and mammals, Emma Skurnick instructing about watercolor and colored pencil
(probably focusing on reptiles), and Linda Feltner teaching about live animal
drawing (just wait and see what slimy, creepy or crawly animals come to
THIS class!).
If
this isn’t enough, just wait until the end of the core conference for the
WORKSHOP and FIELD TRIP section of the conference (Thursday-Saturday, July
15-17). John Cody is conducting a 2-day workshop focusing on watercolor
background and extreme detail. Patricia Savage will present her ever-so-popular
workshop on pastels. Trudy Nicholson will coach her students in the art
of scratchboard. Dick Rauh is back with plant anatomy.
Digital workshops will be offered on Thursday and Friday. These will be
held in the state-of-the-art computer labs. Topics include Illustrator/Sketchbook
Pro, Flash, InDesign, Photoshop and more. Stay tuned for the details on
the presenters.
There will be many choices for Field Trips, including a trip to the Lemur
Center, choices of several Botanical Gardens (some of these are not open
to the general public on a regular basis), the Century Campus Wildlife Center
(turtle telemetry), the Carnivore Preservation Trust, canoeing, kayaking,
museums….
OK.
Does that seem like enough? Oh no! Wait! There’s more!!! We are also going
to include some presentations on paleo and taxidermy, and some geared specifically
for the educators. AND, the stuff listed above only deals with the daylight
hours of the conference! The evenings promise to be informative and fun
as well. On Sunday night bring your portfolio to the Portfolio Sharing and
have some refreshments, browse other people’s artwork and share ideas and
just plain have fun. On Monday night join us at the Opening Night for the
Annual Exhibit to see what the best Scientific Illustrators in the country
(...uhhh, I mean the world) are up to. Tuesday night our "Auction Chick"
Clara Richardson will lead us through an evening of much hilarity and, if
last year’s conference is any indication, through some plain hysterical
moments while raising funds for the GNSI and the Educational Fund. Wednesday
night we’ll enjoy the banquet. Not just ANY banquet. We’ll start out the
evening having cocktails in the Butterfly House of the NC Museum of Life
and Science. Then we’ll move into the museum for dinner and we’ll have the
museum to ourselves for a couple of hours. And pretty much every night you
will find a group of night owls having a party in one of the common areas
around Wolf Village. Feel free to join in the laughter, the conversation
and the singing.
The entire planning committee looks forward to seeing you in July in Raleigh,
The City of Oaks!