At the MSI studio we are also in a transitional period; finishing our last curriculum assignments and getting ready to begin with our thesis. It feels a little bittersweet. The human dissection project is done and submitted. The carnivorous plant assignment, done and submitted. Or at least for the purpose of the program. It is a massive project and I plan to keep working on it to eventually use it as a portfolio piece. But progress is going to be slow for now. If you want to see where it stands, interactivity and all, you can click here to get a sneak peak.

The latest addition to the list of finished assignments is a reconstruction of the skeleton and a muscle group, in one of my life model drawings. Even though I struggled finding motivation for this assignment, it’s actually very interesting. We’ve had to use the bony landmarks in a drawing of our choice to extrapolate where the bones are in the body and reconstruct the skeleton. Using that skeleton, along with data on where the muscles attach to the bones and the visual information in our drawings, we could deduce the placement of the muscles. Though it might sound exciting, it is also a lot of hard and tedious work. It feels like a rite of passage. Two of the first assignments of the program were to draw a life sized human skeleton from observation and to reconstruct a skeleton in a drawing of a dog or lion. Those were like an initiation of sorts. To then end the curriculum with a similar assignment, but with much more knowledge and skills, seems symbolic.

So now the only thing that is left is the thesis. It feels weird to start working on what we know will be the final project of the program. Like there should be some grand ceremony to mark the importance of what we’re about to do. But I guess all it takes is to just start doing it. So that’s what I am working on now. I have drafted a preliminary illustration list, formulated my research questions and made a schedule. Everything is set and ready to go! I’m hoping to begin with some sketches of my pet spider today.

For those of you wondering how my spider is doing, she seems to be doing well! Her enclosure used to sit on my desk, which had me worried because it meant there was a bit of direct sunlight hitting her enclosure which could cause overheating. Though I put up some plants in front of her and was closely monitoring temperatures, it wasn’t ideal. So to help me worry less, and also to clear up some desk space, I have now dedicated an entire shelf to her in a newly thrifted bookcase. I think she will be happy there.

On a more mundane note, I have sorted everything out to open my store again. I want to clear my stock a bit, so that when I graduate I can reassess which products I still want to sell and possibly work on some new ones. To help with that, I have a 20% discount code that’s valid until the end of the year, FALLCLEAN20. There’s postcards, prints and of course the birthday calendar, either for yourself or as a holiday gift for the nature lovers in your life. Click here to go and see.

And that’s it for this months newsletter! As we’re moving towards the winter solstice and the festive season, I hope you have sources of light in your life. Whether it’s simply in the form of candles or fairy lights in your house, or more abstract, in the form of friends and (chosen) family who make you feel happy and light. For me, I know I will be spending some time in Botanical Garden greenhouses, to try and soak up some of the warmth and greenery.

Until next time!

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So that’s what I have been busy with lately. My thesis advisor invited me over to see her lab in Bonn, Germany and I made a day trip out of it. First visiting the lab and later the botanical garden. While I was in the lab she gave me a Portia fimbriata spider to take care of and to study, which is the species she is currently working with. It’s an interesting spider that has surprisingly smart hunting strategies to catch its prey. But more on that later.

The botanical garden was also an absolute must see. I especially loved the greenhouse, and the ‘Karnivoren Schauhaus’ where they keep their collection of carnivorous plants. It was fun to see the plants I’m illustrating for my infographic (Nepenthes, Cephalotus and Sarracenia) in a more natural environment. Lately I have been working on fleshing out the Cephalotus illustration a bit more, so I particularly enjoyed seeing that one. It’s an Australian plant that mostly catches ants and is absolutely ruthless about it. It really goes the extra mile to make sure that any insect that gets stuck in its pitcher never leaves again.

Even though I love working on the carnivorous plant project a lot, I’ve had to put it on the back burner for now. Because it’s so enjoyable it’s very easy to get lost in the sauce (to stay with the kitchen related expressions), but there’s other projects that need finishing too. The dissection project for example. I don’t really talk much about the medical side of the program, but in the past year we’ve had to dissect a human body part of our choosing. For me it was the arm, because I’ve had tennis elbow twice(without ever playing tennis, mind you), and I thought it would be interesting to see the structures that are involved. The illustration that I’m working on shows exactly that. And while dissection hasn’t exactly been my favorite part of the program, I do appreciate the process of transforming the photos I took into something beautiful. I’ll spare you the pictures until it’s finished.

Well, I feel like my October newsletter has been appropriately spooky, with spiders, meat eating plants and human body parts. Same as last time, I’ll end with some things that I’m looking forward to right now. Cold and misty mornings that smell like fall, spending lots of time observing and drawing my new spider friend, and of course my birthday later this month.
I hope you also take some time to enjoy the cooler weather, and go hang out with trees and mushrooms. It looks to be a beautiful autumn!

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Right now we’re nearing the end of September and I’m almost a month into the new academic year. It’s my second and final year at the Master of Scientific Illustration, which means I will have to start working on my thesis soon. By the end of this academic year I’m expected to have made a 40-page publication with both scientific illustrations and text. It’s as exciting as it is daunting. Luckily, I can take it step by step and the first one is figuring out my thesis subject. More on that in later newsletters! All I can say now is that there will be arthropods.

The past summer has been a bit of a whirlwind, filled with seeing old and new friends, working on projects but also, sadly, loss. Two people I was close to have passed away recently. One of them had been ill and she asked me to make a portrait of her for her funeral card. An honor, but not an easy one. Most of my summer I worked on trying to portray her as the beautiful and radiant person I knew her to be. I am so grateful that I got to do this for her. It’s made me think about how we show up for other people, in the ways that we best can and how that’s different for everyone.

On a less personal note, I have been working on a school project that I’m very excited about: an interactive infographic on carnivorous plants. I find it endlessly fascinating that carnivory in plants has evolved independently at least twelve times. It’s a really neat example of convergent evolution. In the infographic I am comparing three types of pitcher plants that are not at all related, but are still surprisingly similar in both behavior and looks. Apparently some structures just work really well for catching insects.

I’m also excited about learning to work with Rive, which is the platform I’m using to make the illustrations interactive. There was a bit of a learning curve, but I am really enjoying the structured thinking necessary for working with low-code programming.

I’m trying to keep it short for my first newsletter, so I’ll end with things that I’m looking forward to right now: going hiking with my camera and snapping some mushroom pictures, autumn storms, hearty dishes like pumpkin soup, and seeing the colors of the trees change from green to reds and yellows (though this also always makes me feel slightly sad).

Hope you enjoyed this newsletter, and I’ll see you around for the next one!