2011 Conference and Annual Meeting

Friends or Foes: The Art, Science, and Cultural Connections between People and Crows

Dr. David P. Craig
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

Crows and the rest of their corvid cousins such as ravens, magpies, and jays are famous for their intelligence and for their capacity to flourish in the company of humans and the landscapes they create. Researchers from the University of Washington and Willamette University studying the rapidly expanding populations of crows in both Seattle, WA and Salem, OR have found that American Crows can actually distinguish between individual human faces within a crowd. Using a diverse collection of artful imagery and a few original illustrations of his own, one of the investigators, Dr. David P. Craig, will describe how the studies were done and what conclusions can be drawn about crow behavior and development. The ability to recognize individual people probably gives crows and their kin an evolutionary edge in the modern world—a world with more human faces and more habitat changes than any other time in history. Everyone has a crow story and crow stories new and old have made for some inspired illustrated art.

Humpback Whales: Ocean Salubrious

Dr. Fred Sharpe
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

Despite great odds, humpback whales are recovering the world over.  Their survival intelligence speaks for itself, yet we still know little of these ancient minds.  The humpback’s brain is laced with spindle neurons, which in humans are linked to judgment, intuition and social intelligence. Their ocean migrations are the longest of any mammal as they voyage through social networks of hundreds, perhaps thousands of other whales.

In the Pacific Northwest humpbacks band together in pods nearly two-dozen strong. To capture elusive fishes, these mutualists employ the use of tools and will task specialize.  Diving below herring shoals, a centurion whale gives deafening trumpet cries that frighten fish up from the deep.  Another leader swims in a great circle and blows a spiral bubble trap.  The phalanx of whales then bursts through the surface with giant maws agape to devour the silver, wriggling prey.

These complex behaviors are a challenge to study, yet they are gift for the behavioral ecologist and natural history educator.  With images, video and recordings of their evocative cries, we will celebrates the humpback’s enigmatic, and at times imponderable lives.

Olympic Peninsula: The Ecology of Open Spaces

Dr. Fred Sharpe
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

When reflecting on the Olympics, we envision forests of gigantic trees.  Indeed, there are few places on earth that rival the biomass of our peninsula’s ancient forests.  However, we are also a land of open space.  From summit to seashore, natural forces keep forests at bay.  Trees are twisted and broken by wind, rock fall and rainshadow.  Evergreens yield to tundra, muskeg and moss-covered bald. Prairies are also be found on all points of the compass.  These grasslands have a human face; for millennia indigenous peoples set them ablaze to manage for food plants, fiber and medicines.

Despite human encroachment, the meadowlands within Olympic National Park remain in pristine condition.  This talk will journey across these varied habitats to reflect on their biodiversity, splendor and conservation challenge.

Survival of a Surface: The History of Coquille Board

Scott Rawlins and Colin Kelleher
0.10 Art CEUs

The pebbled drawing surface known as coquille board has been around for decades and has long been appreciated by many types of artists. However, some time in the 1990s this ground virtually disappeared. Shortly afterward, it was resurrected, albeit in a weaker form. What is the nature of this surface, how has it been employed by artists and illustrators and what is its possible future? These questions and more will be addressed via a participatory lecture on the history of coquille board – "quick and dirty," but more resilient than expected.

New Media Publishing

Emily Coren
0.10 Business CEUs

Digital and online publishing formats have been changing the way we communicate information. As science illustrators it is our job to reach our target audiences with as much of the relevant information as possible. This presentation is an overview of New Media publishing. It will cover examples of science communication on Facebook, YouTube, blogs, web comics, etc. as well as briefly how to use them.

Walking with Grizzlies

Michael Felber
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

Coastal grizzly bears have a concentrated food source (salmon), and have evolved to communicate with other bears in order to avoid unnecessary violent conflicts. Michael Felber has been to Katmai Natl. Park in Alaska five times, to observe, draw and photograph grizzly bears. He will show slides from three of these trips, and talk about various bear behaviors. He will also talk about reading bear body language, and how to communicate with coastal grizzlies using our own body language, in order to observe them in a stress free situation.

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Reviving the GNSI Online

Britt Griswold
0.10 Art CEUs

Learn how you can use the new abilities of the GNSI website. Britt will present how members and chapters can make the most use of the new features of the revitalized GNSI website; discuss some of the technology being used to power it, and then lead a roundtable discussion of how we can improve it in the future. This is your chance to give the guild feedback on the website, which is an important part of any website development project.

Making a Web Presence for Your Business

Britt Griswold
0.10 Art CEUs

Explore some of the web 2.0 possibilities for creating a professional web presence without programming a website from scratch. Britt will examine a selection of the drag and drop website building services to be found online. Then he will discuss the abilities of the GNSI's Science-Art.com web site and how it fits into this ecosystem of web presence.

Accurately depicting scales on fish

Stewart Alcorn
Level: General
Prerequisites: none
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

This slide presentation is meant to teach folks how to use anatomical measurements to accurately portray scale patterns of fish. This information can then be used to develop images in any medium. I will introduce participants to the types of scales found on the predominant fish types. Basic anatomy will then be reviewed, and how landmarks on the fish can be used to accurately map out scale patterns on a flat specimen. Then, my method of wrapping the scale pattern onto a dynamically posed fish will be covered. The presentation will wrap up with a brief description of portraying scales in a variety of artistic mediums. A handout of the slides used in the talk will be provided to all participants.

A Salmon's Journey Home

Christine Elder
0.15 Biomedical CEUs

The Pacific coast of Washington is, historically, a rich habitat for salmonids of several species. In this one-hour slide show presentation, Christine will take you on a journey to follow a salmon on its daunting journey as it attempts the 3,000 mile migration up Washington's Columbia River to its ancestral spawning grounds deep in the Rocky Mountains. Along the way, you'll learn about the many obstacles a 21st century salmon faces as it struggles to make it home. Following the slide show will be an optional sketching session in which Christine demonstrates her middle school lesson plan used to education children about the anatomy and life history of this endangered natural resource.

Colored Pencil Stew

Mini-Workshop by Eileen F. Sorg
Level – All
Prerequisites – none
0.20 Art CEUs

"SUPPLIES needed for workshop Prismacolor Pencils & Arches Hot Press 140# watercolor paper."

For the artist interested in creating accurate renderings that are detailed and vibrant, colored pencil cannot be beat. All to often however, these renderings can take weeks to produce, which can scare artists away from the medium. The ability to speed up the process while maintaining the unique qualities that colored pencils impart is the focus of this workshop.

 This workshop will teach you how to use ink, watercolor, and colored pencil together to create richly detailed pieces of art. This approach allows for a quick build up of color and value while leaving room for the intense detail and control of colored pencil. You will learn application tips, and how to extract the best qualities of each medium in this fun and informative workshop.

Dot, Dot, Dot: Stippling’s Past, Present, & Future

Katura Reynolds
0.10 Art CEUs

Stippling is a drawing method so tedious that it could almost be considered a hazing ritual for budding science illustrators. But few things approach the beauty and clarity of a well-executed stipple drawing. This Powerpoint presentation will first review images from the golden age of stippling, focusing on renderings of fossils. We will then examine the role of stippling in modern illustration. Can digital media achieve that classic stippled look with less fuss, or is pen & ink still the best approach?

Toxoplasma and other Epidemiological Delights

Bryn Barnard
0.10 Art CEUs

Bryn explores four of the epidemics discussed in his book Outbreak: Plagues That Changed History: toxoplasma, plague, cholera and tuberculosis. Discover how Bryn Barnard creates his meticulously imagined reconstructions of science history while learning how the epidemics of the past continue to ripple across time, shaping our thoughts, relationships, politics, economics and wars. Bryn will discuss his technique, research methods, and marketing strategies.

The Importance of Vector Graphics

Rick Simonson
0.10 Art CEUs

Understand the importance and usefulness of vector graphics for the science illustrator. The most fundamental features of Adobe Illustrator will be demonstrated. This lecture will emphasize many ways in which vector graphics can be very beneficial to an illustrator's workflow. The modern science illustrator must be able to create illustrations that involve type, labels, design elements, and repeating patterns. A vector graphics program is the ideal tool for these common tasks. Vector graphics allows your work to be easily scaled, duplicated, and modified. Adobe Illustrator smoothly integrates into workflows with Photoshop, InDesign, Flash, etc.

Plants of the Permo-Triassic

Russell J. Hawley
0.40 Art CEUs

The boundary between the Palaeozoic and the Mesozoic marks one of the most important transitions in the history of life. The great Permian mass extinction cleared the world stage of the archaic biota and paved the way for new plants and animals, most famously the dinosaurs. Although the changeover in animal life gets the lion's share of media attention, the Permo-Triassic also saw a major shift in the composition of plant communities, which must be considered if an accurate picture of the world of 251 million years ago is to be reconstructed. The fossil record of Permo-Triassic plants will be reviewed, as well as its implications for artists interested in illustrating the Dawn of the Dinosaur Age.

Reconstructing a “missing link,” Puijila darwini

Mark A. Klingler
0.10 Art CEUs

See how a scientific illustrator reconstructs an extinct creature! Mark Klingler works with some of the world's leading scientists to piece together the lives of animals that disappeared from Earth tens of millions of years ago. Puijila (puh-WEE-yi-la, "young sea mammal" in the Inuktitut language) is a new species of the group that includes seals, sea lions, and walruses, and provides evidence of the "missing link" in this group's evolutionary migration from land to sea. The name darwini was bestowed in honor of this creature's evolutionary significance and the fact that the fossil was discovered in the year of the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Developed with legendary paleontologist Mary Dawson, the final image was used in media worldwide, including the esteemed journal Nature. Learn how Klingler merged science and art to bring this extinct creature back to life.

Virtual Voyaging: Expeditionary Illustration into the 21st Century

Captain Suzan Wallace
0.15 Art CEUs

The connection between voyaging and discovery illustration has a history as long as vessels have plied the seas. Come glimpse at both our expeditionary hallmarks in botanical and navigational illustration up through the high-tech world of 'live-stream' telepresence communication with R/V explorers world-wide. Allow us to teleport you through 21st century communication tools to: 1) hear the story of a 17th century circumnavigating female botanist Jeanne Baret, with Glynis Ridley, 2) explore the virtual-artist-in-residence expeditionary artist Danielle Eubanks on board a replica 600 B.C. Phoenician vessel, 3) review the data sets on global warming from Around the Americas S/V OCEANWATCH crew and 4) examine new lifeforms by the power of Bob Ballard's 'telepresence' influence on NOAA's premier R/V OKEANOS EXPLORER. 95% of the earth's oceans remain unexplored….science illustrators have earned & retain a front row seat by exploring, interpreting and illustrating our blue planet….don't miss the boat!

Producing and Marketing Notecards

Erika Beyer
0.10 Business CEUs

Interested in creating and marketing notecards of your artwork? Learn to transform finished illustrations into beautiful cards from start to finish. Several details will be covered including paper selection, printing options, and production techniques. Important considerations and common pitfalls will also be addressed. We will end by discussing how to market your cards to a diverse audience.

Bloodroot as Natural Plant Dye, Sanguinaria Canadensis

From Natural History to Cultural History

Nikki McClure
0.10 Art CEUs

Slide show lecture featuring Nikki McClure's papercut art. She will speak about her roots in natural history and how she incorporates them into a examination of cultural history. Nikki will also do a short demo showing her papercutting technique.

Treasures from the Archive

Diane T Sands
0.10 Business CEUs

Step into the past, and view pieces of Guild history - literally! This 45 minute lecture will include show & tell gems from the GNSI's physical Archive; expound upon the easy-to-say/harder-to-execute idea of digitization; define the Oral History Project; and touch on the Future of Our Past. All are welcome to attend.

A Virtual Tour of Adobe Photoshop

Ikumi Kayama
0.20 Business CEUs

Photoshop is a powerful graphic editing software with endless possibilities.  However, because of its complexity and its somewhat unfriendly interface, many new users get discouraged and only use the basic tools in the default settings.  Like any other medium, Photoshop can be customized to create your own styles and techniques.

This lecture for beginners to intermediate users of Photoshop will navigate and introduce the Photoshop palettes, toolbars, and buttons that will be useful to many illustrators. Ways to save a custom workspace and favorite tools will be discussed.  The lecture will be a blend of slide presentation and live demonstrations to familiarize the user with the interface.

Intro to InDesign

Amanda Zimmerman
0.10 Art CEUs

This presentation will be a ‘wading in and getting your feet wet’ introduction to InDesign. We will have a mock design layout project that we will assemble during the presentation that will introduce us to the tools of InDesign and how to import text, images and manipulate them in the file to look exactly as we desire. The class will learn about working on layers, using guides, text wrap and special effects such as transparencies. Once finished, we will review the different options for saving, printing and exporting and what’s appropriate for the end results.

Website Usability Testing: Does your website work for your audience?

Mini-Workshop by Lana Koepke Johnson
0.20 Business CEUs

How do you decide if your website "works" for your audience? Can users easily find what they are looking for? Can they easily perform certain task to maybe buy something from you, contact you, or hire you to do the next biggest illustration assignment? Web usability testing allows us to observe what users do, where they succeed and where they have difficulties. Feedback from this testing can then be used to improve designs and interfaces for better user experiences. 
Lana attended a Usability Conference with the Nielsen Norman Group in 2008 and has been conducting usability testing on web sites at the University of Nebraska. This  seminar will cover the basics of web usability studies, procedures for testing web sites, and highlight some study results.

Making the Invisible Visible: Addressing “Plant Blindness”
One Doodle at a Time

Tania Marien
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

Plants are not background noise. Stamen are not “these thingys”. Plants play a significant role in our lives and while any number of people might nod in agreement, research indicates that few people can speak casually about plants with the same energy they have when speaking casually about animals. Learn about “plant blindness”, botanical illiteracy, and why these topics need to be discussed by more than just frustrated botanists. Also learn about one organization’s efforts to make the invisible visible one doodle at a time.

Narrative Image

Daniela Molnar
0.10 Art CEUs

We will explore the confluence of visual and verbal art and how using these two modes of creation together can be inspiring and informative for a scientific illustrator. Focusing on the work of several current and historical artist/writers, we will look at ways to gain fluency in using writing to discover and articulate visual ideas, and using images to sharpen, deepen, and refine your writing.

Developing a Sense of Place in Sketchbooks

Mini-Workshop by Kris Kirkeby
Level: All
Prerequisites: None
0.20 Art CEUs

What inspires or stimulates the artist to zero in on an image and do a sketch? When a sketchbook entry is done, does it express what you felt or wished to illustrate and will that be conveyed to a viewer? If your published artwork requires a sense of place to be shown, how can you distill those elements so they are a quick read?

Sketchbook entries can bring you back to special places and trigger many levels of stored memories. This session will offer hints on how to direct the focus and the viewer by being aware of how to render an image so it reflects a place of uniqueness, natural history, or cultural location.

Stick Drawing- Loosening Those Tight Muscles

Mini-Workshop by Kris Kirkeby
Level: All
Prerequisites: None
0.10 Art CUEs

Natural science illustrators, by the nature of our work, have to work quite tightly both in rendering of the artwork and in artistically relating the necessary descriptive information. However, sometimes it is helpful to practice a less controlling drawing method as a break from the computer or artist's table. This fun method can also help us hone our use of line. Really don't know what we'll do in this session? Join us!

Infusing Your Subjects with Life
Drawing Tips for Adding Energy to an Image

Mini-workship by Kristie Bruzenak
Level : All
Prerequisites: None
0.15 Biomedical CEUs

When drawing a specimen faithfully, it is easy to loose sight of its full nature. Strategies exist that can help artists look beyond the details and invest illustrations with a full sense of the life and energy characteristic of their subjects. Images from fine art and scientific illustration fields will be used to demonstrate the various methods that artists can employ to communicate the personality of their subjects.

Participants will be shown a range of art works analyzed to show the strategies used and will practice the analysis of a masterwork to deepen their understanding of the methods shown.  Pencils and erasers will be needed.  Handouts, tracing paper, and images for analysis will be provided.

Color for the Natural Science Illustrator

Marlene Hill Donelly
0.10 Art CEUs

The color requirements for natural science art are much more demanding than for those for other art forms.  We need precise and often vivid color for our flowers, insects and birds as well as reliable mixtures methods for accurate and complex shadows, highlights and transmitted light.  This mini-workshop will explain and demonstrate techniques for both precise color mixing and a different, fun and messy approach for learning color and creating exciting backgrounds at the same time.

Resurrecting Fossil Plants:
Examples from a Cretaceous Flora

Cheryl McCutchan
0.10 Biomedical CEUs

Fossil leaves can be exquisitely preserved and provide a wealth of information about the extinct plant and the environment in which it lived. But fossil leaves, along with seeds and cones, are often found detached from the parent plant. It is the job of the paleobotanist and the paleobotanical illustrator to try to reconstruct the original plant from the evidence found in the fossils. Cheryl will discuss a variety of techniques that can be used to piece these fossil puzzles together. She will also show how these techniques were used to create reconstructions of three gymnosperms from an Early Cretaceous flora.

Grant Funding, Art Exhibit, and Conservation Efforts
How a little Nebraska beetle brought artists, scientists and the public together

Tierney R. Brosius
0.10 Business CEUs

The Salt Creek tiger beetle, an endangered insect living in Southeastern Nebraska, challenges us to rethink how we place value on wildlife. Great Plains Chapter of the GNSI accepted this challenge by organizing, curating, and raising funds for an art exhibit entitled “Salt Creek Environment: Local and Endangered.” Several local organizations and artists were brought together. The goal of the exhibit was to use art to encourage the public to see the subtle and humble beauty of the Salt Creek tiger beetle while increasing awareness of this misunderstood insect and its habitat. Over 20 artists and scientists were part of this collaboration, documenting the tiger beetle’s natural history and ecosystem through a wide variety of artistic techniques including traditional illustration, origami, ceramics, and fabric art. Tierney will discuss the processes of the funding and organization of this extremely successful exhibit.  

"Ruskin's Nine Laws of Composition
as illustrated by Birds"

Peggy Macnamara
0.10 Art CEUs

When an artist illustrates nature there is always the possibility of discovery. While drawing and painting birds in large flocks migrating, foraging and resting, I discovered that they coreogrph themselves in certain ways that illustrate John Ruskin's Nine laws of Composition. Radiation for example is one of these laws. While painting a large group of shorebirds taking off, I found a pattern of repetition curves. Now Rukin in the "Elements of Drawing" used things like leaves to make his point. But living things that are moving? These birds arrange themselves to assure species success, not to create harmonious design. I had completed 50 plates of my migration book (University of Chicato Press, 2011) when I asked a volunteer in the Bird division at the Field Museum if she had any flight photos. With this new material I doubled my size to 30 by 40 and began working from photos for the first time. The resulting work felt like I was on Vacation. I just put down the information correctly and the birds did the rest!

Drawing the Thorne River Basket, one of Alaska's Oldest and Most Stunning Archaeological Finds

Margaret Davidson
0.10 Art CEUs

One day in the 1994 off-duty geologist and sometimes archaeologist Dave Putnam was walking along the Thorne River in Alaska, when he spotted something odd.  The tide was low, so part of the riverbank was visible that was usually underwater, and there, barely showing, was a sort of textured fringe sticking out of the mud.  This caught his eye, and turned out to be the remains of an ancient basket, anaerobically preserved in the mud for over 5,000 years.

My slide talk will be about the one intensive week spent in Alaska drawing this amazing and fragile artifact, and about the very tiny but wonderful subset of archaeological illustration that is the study and drawing of basketry.

From the field to the studio – a behind the scenes look at how to paint realistic wildlife subjects

Bart Rulon
0.20 Art CEUs

This colorful slide show features the award winning artwork of local wildlife artist and illustrator Bart Rulon (Whidbey Island, WA).  Artists of all levels will learn something new from this presentation.  It’s a behind the scenes journey showing how Rulon creates his realistic paintings of wildlife, starting with the time he spends sketching and photographing wildlife in the field, in locations all over the world.  You’ll learn techniques Bart uses to research his subjects in the wild as you see pictures of wildlife taken from the vantage point of a kayak, and floating blind.  Slides demonstrating the progression of his paintings in acrylic and watercolor will give you insight on his painting process.  Bart will share other studio techniques he’s learned over 20 years as a career wildlife artist.

Aquatic Insects - drawing the unseen

Carri J. LeRoy, Ph.D.

Many of the insects you know and love spend some of their lives
underwater (mayflies, dragonflies, damselflies, caddisflies). In this
workshop we will get a glimpse of the fascinating creatures that live
in streams and lakes and have a chance to draw them using preserved
specimens. Learn about their life cycles, evolution, ecological
interactions and taxonomy through a short lecture/slide show. No prior
knowledge in entomology is required and the drawing workshop could
accommodate beginning to advanced artists. The remainder of our time
will be spent sketching the organisms aided by microscopy. Workshop
participants will be encouraged to share ideas for illustration
techniques – especially for capturing underwater scenes.

Illustrating Nature with Sculpture

Ross Matteson

Ross will share his experience interpreting species specific subjects in marble and bronze. He will speak to the benefits of research that unleashes our childlike curiosity and desire to touch what we are trying to illustrate. He will share adventures in getting close to falcons, eagles, owls, wolverines, leatherback sea turtles, otter, salmon, orcas, loons and even human experts who have dedicated their lives to these subjects! He will discuss these experiences with related images of his own work and address the vast data required for three dimensional rendering. This talk will be equally relevant for two and three dimensional artists at all levels of experience. After Q and A, about 25 participants will be offered a homing pigeon to hold, observe and release.

Intellectual Property for Illustrators
(and other Legal Stuff)

Gary Swearingen

Gary will present an interactive discussion on intellectual property rights of interest to illustrators. He’ll offer an overview copyright law with an emphasis on issues of importance to illustrators, including protecting your own work, whether and to what extend you can use the work of another, works made for hire, and rights around derivative works.  There will be plenty of time for questions and situations from the audience.  Participants can expect to take away a basic understanding of the important intellectual property rights in illustrations as well as answers to any questions that they may have. 

Panel discussion: Balancing family and career

Nicolle Rager Fuller, Cindy Shaw

Join us for a panel and open discussion with GNSI members experienced at juggling family and an illustration career. Gain insights and tips to help organize your time and make space for your work.

Panel discussion: The future of botanical art

Gretchen Halpert, Deborah Shaw, Alice Tangerini. Moderator: Marjorie Leggitt

Ink or illustrator? Is botanical illustration heading into a digital direction or are traditional works more valuable than ever. This panel discussion will cover the present state of botanical art and its potential direction. Join us for a panel and open discussion with GNSI members who have great experience working in the botanical field.