Organism Project and Unfinished Business

So as the title states, I have a lot of unfinished business this week.  I don't have any completed pieces because I am in the middle of four projects, and I am only one woman.  So I figured I would post what I have done so far: 

Ugly Still Life (Day5)

This is where my Ugly Still Life for my painting class is right now.  That creepy baby doll took 2 hours...

Live Model Portrait (Day1)

And this is the last project for my painting class (sadly).  We are painting a live model for the next three class periods, and this was the rough sketch I got down on Thursday.  I don't know if it's common for portrait models to do this, but she fell asleep a couple times.

Dragonfly Apocalypse

Dragonfly Apocalypse (detail)

Almost forgot I was working on this.  This is the last piece I was drawing for my dragonfly challenge.  In case anyone was wondering, I've been using a 4B soft charcoal pencil and a blending stump (the greatest invention ever) for this.  Blending stumps make blending look way better, and your hand isn't covered in charcoal afterward - win-win.

Whiskered Auklet Mug Shot

And finally, my last auklet challenge drawing.  I'm using the stippling technique, which is a method of forming shaded areas by using small dots.  This detail picture shows it a little better.  To answer your question - Yes, it takes forever.

Whiskered Auklet Mug Shot (detail)

And for this I am using Faber-Castell artist pens.  These bad boys are also great because they create really deep blacks, they don't bleed through the paper, and they don't leave annoying streaks.  AND they cost $15!

I'm finally back on track with my scientific illustrator research, and today's famous illustrator is Maria Sibylla Merian.  Merian was the daughter of an accomplished engraver, and later the step-daughter of a still life painter, Jacob Marrel, whom encouraged her artistic attributes.  She developed her curiosity for nature at an early age, capturing insects and caterpillars wherever she could find them and sketching them at various stages.  In 1665, she moved out to Nuremberg, Germany with her husband and daughter.  Here, Merian produced embroidery patterns for the wealthy, and in return, she gained access to the finest gardens.  These gardens became the birthplace of her most influential studies of metamorphosis.  Little was known about this developmental process during the 17th century - the most accepted theory being that these insects underwent spontaneous generation.  In other words, they believed butterflies came from mud.  But Merian's sketches and detailed descriptions shed new light on the complexity of insect metamorphosis, and these illustrations were published in her first book New Book of Flowers in 1675 at the age of 28.  She later published another book entitled The Caterpillar, Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food, which provided information on more species and also the plants they ate.

Coral Tree and Eye Spinner

Cardinal's Guard (Caligo Butterfly, Wasp, and Acanthaceae), 1730, hand-colored etching

Snake and Jasmine, 1719, hand-colored etching

Wooly-haired Megalopygio Caterpillar, 1726

Parrot Tulip and Red Currants with a Magpie Moth, Its Caterpillar and Pupa

Branch of a Banana Tree with Caterpillar and Moth, 1701-1705

Parrot Tulip

After her studies of insects and plants in Europe, Merian traveled to the Dutch colony Suriname in South America and stayed there for two years (something almost unheard of for women during that time).  There she encountered and illustrated new species of plants, insects and animals, and even learned the native languages of the locals and African slaves living in the area.  After returning to Europe, Merian published her most renown book Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname, which contained 60 full-page engraved plates and detailed descriptions of her specimen.  Her illustrations of beautiful flowers juxtaposed by creepy-crawling insects are some of the most significant contributions to entymology, and much of her work was even cited later by Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern zoological classification.

As a side note: due to the inconsistency of the internet, I'm not sure which images here are from which book, so don't yell at me if some of this is inaccurate..

Plate 1 from her book on Suriname Species

Bird with Snake, 1705

Common or Spectacled Caimen and South American False Coral Snake, 1719

(my favorite^^^)

Goliath Bird-Eating Spider

These two pictures below are a great example of the unreliability of the internet.  Perfect mirror images of each other - not sure which is the original, or if she even really made one of them.  But they look awesome.

Suriname Lizard, pen and ink, watercolor and gouache on vellum

Lizard, 1719, hand-colored etching

Also, she was so famous in Germany that she made it onto their original Deutsche Mark currency!  My new goal is to be the face of an American dollar bill at some point in my life.  I might settle for a coin.