YO HO, A PIRATE'S LIFE FOR ME!

SPECIMEN SET UP

SPECIMEN SET UP

ARRGH!!!!

So why the eye patch, you ask?  Being a science illustrator also means I get to legitimately be a pirate.  I swear.  An eye patch was on our list of supplies.

As you can imagine, one purpose of a scientific illustration is accuracy.  One way of achieving this is setting your specimen up behind a grid and drawing over gridded paper.  This is a guide to correctly scale the drawing up or down while keeping the specimen's true proportions.  I've never used this method before and it is a lot harder than it looks.  I never realized that I move around so much when I draw and it's important to keep very still when using a grid.  It's also  tricky to see through the grid when both eyes are open and all of a sudden you're seeing 3 grids instead of one.  Hence the need for an eye patch!  In this case, it's better to use only one eye.

Check back in a few days.  This drawing will be done by Thursday and up on my blog shortly thereafter.