Field Studies: Sketching and Taking Notes
When studying organisms in a research setting, it’s important to keep thorough notes. While many great notes are mostly or entirely written, illustrated notes can be much more interesting and useful for others to reference. Because the goal of taking lab notes is not necessarily to create a piece of art, they are much rougher than professional scientific illustrations. Despite this, they are often beautiful in their own right because they display not only the artist’s style but their thought process as well. A journal entry on a particular organism may include an overall sketch of it’s shape or “habit” as well as measurements and detail drawings of textures, defining structures, and behaviors.
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For me, pen and ink is the ideal medium for this sort of illustration because it forces you to decide which details to include or leave out, which is especially important when you are working with organic samples that are moving or rapidly deteriorating. It also forces you to accept small mistakes that may not necessarily detract from the information you are trying to record. Other materials I like to use include graphite for mapping out general shapes and forms, and watercolor for color notes when using mixed media or watercolor paper.
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