I spent a year at the University of Washington studying natural science illustration. It was one of the highlights of my life. Not only was it extraordinarily fun to be in Seattle for a while, I felt like I had met my people. We were a group that, more than anything, wanted to get together and geek out over animals and plants while drawing them.
One of the most impactful bits of advice I encountered was from a visiting instructor, who advised us to carry around a small plastic animal figurine of whatever live animal we were observing. The goal is (obviously) not to draw the plastic animal, but when you’re working with a subject that moves around, you can use the figurine to get some idea of how the animals parts relate to one another and (if it’s a good figurine) some clue about proportion.
Over the years I’ve become a bit of a collector of animal figurines; I have a plastic shoe box full of them. My favorites are from Schleich, but I’ve been known to pick up figures from other companies as well.
I’ve always wanted to do a small zine featuring watercolor paintings of some of the figurines. Maybe now is the time (sigh).
Carmen Yount 