Do you or your students want to observe your world more closely through drawing? Do you work with a collection that could be brought to light through illustration or public works of art?
I lead scientific illustration workshops for adults, often in partnership with universities and non-profits.
Weekend workshops at Lewis & Clark College in Portland
Lewis & Clark College holds a collection of specimens from the Pacific Northwest: insects, birds, rodents, and more. During weekend-long workshops, art and science students pulled these critters out of drawers and brought them to life with graphite and ink.
Exercises included contour drawing, basic shape studies, texture exploration, line-work, and progression from rough drawings to more polished pieces.
Over the course of several years, multiple workshops were funded through grants that the students generously applied for.
Semester-long courses at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA
Evergreen holds a collection of well-maintained specimens from the Pacific Northwest, living collections of native plants, and—being the Northwest—fungi galore.
For two summers, I taught a Basics of Scientific Illustration course centered around these collections. Students drew from observation, conveyed natural processes and aspects of nature that are hard to see, explored various traditional media, and took one illustration from loose concepts and research through scanned, edited, and printed work.
Earthstar by Nantz McMillen, 2017.
Drawing Nights at the Slater Museum of Natural History in Tacoma, WA
The Slater Museum at the University of Puget Sound holds an extensive natural history collection including one of the largest bird collections on the west coast.
Students and community members from outside of the University came together to draw specimens and socialize. This popular event brought many first-time visitors to the Museum.
With permission, I used participants’ illustrations in other Museum marketing materials.
