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Posts Tagged ‘biology’

Need examples of how biology and art influence each other? Start here.

Posted in botanical art, tagged , , , , , on October 26, 2012 |

The links between art and science are obvious to me and to you too, I am sure. The difficulty in making this case to others who may not share our interests is providing examples of how art and science work together. Pointing to illustrations in a field guide or a textbook is easy to do, however if we do this too often, I feel we risk making the impression that science and art intersect only in academic texts. Searching for examples outside of academia requires travel to venues such as museums and art shows and, while definitely not a bad thing, time and resources limit how much traveling we can do.

Fortunately for us, Maura Flannery wrote Biology & Art: An Intricate Relationship, a wonderful article in which she features 22 artists and how they blend biology and art in their work. You can postpone your museum visits for a little while longer. Thanks to Maura, you only need to travel as far as your file cabinet for examples to help illustrate the fact that biology and art influence each other on many levels.

The artists featured in Flannery (2012) work with pencil, pen and ink, glass, clay, stainless steel, and even dung. Some keep nature journals, press plants, make prints with fish, create molecules, and use insects as art. You’ll even find examples of controversial bio-art in her article.

You may recognize the name of one of the artists Flannery writes about. Illustrator Jenny Keller made Flannery’s list because of the chapter she wrote about the value of sketching in Michael R. Canfield’s Field Notes on Science and Nature. Keller is a scientific illustrator and instructor in the scientific illustration certificate program at California State University, Monterey Bay. Keller’s sketchbooks are packed with information and are oh-so inspiring. Actually, the word inspiring doesn’t cut it. I am going to borrow the word illustrator Dorothia Rohner used this past summer at the conference of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators — “masterful”.

In keeping with our shared interest in plants, I will mention one more artist Flannery writes about in her article. Artist James Walsh discovered that many of the weeds growing in New York are native to the Arctic (Flannery, 2012). To bring attention to these plants, he collected them, studied them, pressed them and created an exhibition about his findings. A summary of the 2010 exhibition is still viewable online.

Flannery’s article is filled with fantastic examples and I recommend it as a reference to anyone whose interests are firmly planted in biology and art. Her article can be purchased online for $14 or obtained by visiting your local college library.


Literature Cited
Flannery, Maura C. 2012. Biology & art: An intricate relationship. 74(3): 194-197. The American Biology Teacher


More Examples of Biology & Art
To Maura’s well-researched list, I would like to add the following resources for your consideration:

  • Symbiartic: The Science of Art and the Art of Science
  • Science-Art.com
  • Member Gallery of the American Society of Botanical Artists
  • The Ask the Artist list located in the column to the right of this article. This list features the wonderful guests who have shared their work and who have taught us so much. Guests such as Gary Hoyle. Gary will be taking your questions through October 31, 2012. Have a question about museum exhibits, dioramas or the realistic plant models seen in museums? Ask Gary!

Also, don’t miss Maura’s article about imagery in scientific communication.

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Using Dioramas to Teach Biology

Posted in Education, Learning Opportunities, tagged , , , , , on October 12, 2012 |

When you see a diorama in a museum, do you give it a passing glance or do you stop to look inside?

If you stop to look inside, do you notice the animals first? The plants? What do you see? How do you make sense of the scene before you?

Michael J. Reiss and Sue Dale Tunnicliffe of the Institute of Education at the University of London evaluate dioramas and study how visitors react to them. In Dioramas as Depictions of Reality and Opportunities for Learning in Biology, they explain how these small “rooms with a view” can be used as a teaching tool in biology.

Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2011) evaluated dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the Natural History Museum in London. In their evaluation, they observed each diorama carefully and answered the following questions:

  • What is happening within the diorama?
  • What was the intention of those who designed and constructed the diorama?
  • What do visitors notice and discuss?

Their evaluation of dioramas was followed by a review of visitor comments collected from 163 conversations recorded at the Natural History Museum in London.

The authors found that dioramas enhance visitors’ observational skills, encourage inquiry-based learning and inspire visitors to become storytellers. Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2011) observed that when visitors stop to view a diorama, a specific sequence of events occurs. First, visitors identify the specimens in the diorama. Then they make comments about the specimens and interpret the scene before them by drawing upon their prior knowledge. This is followed by visitors asking questions about the scene and devising a story to describe what is going on in the diorama.

It is the storytelling aspect of dioramas that Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2011) say make dioramas good tools for learning in biology. The stories visitors create about the scene before them blend their observations with their own life experiences and this makes it possible for visitors to internalize new information. Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2011) feel museum educators need to guide visitors in the storytelling process because sometimes dioramas can tell the wrong story.

What do Reiss and Tunnicliffe (2011) mean by this?

While the authors value dioramas and the attention to detail that goes into their construction, they have some concern about the messages they send. Their specific concerns have to do with dioramas moving away from “actual reality” and their tendency towards “interesting presented reality” (Reiss and Tunnicliffe, 2011). The authors are concerned that dioramas:

  1. Depict animals doing more interesting things than they would be doing in real life.
  2. Present animals engaged in “unrealistically frequent acts of predation” (Reiss and Tunnicliffe, 2011)
  3. Show only examples of healthy and fit animal life.
  4. Do not include humans interacting with nature, therefore suggesting that humans are separate from nature.

Think about the dioramas you have seen. Do you agree with the concerns raised by Reiss and Tunnicliffe?

Share your observations and thoughts by joining the conversation with artist and museum consultant Gary Hoyle, this month’s featured guest. Today the conversation is about dioramas and the visitor experience.


Literature Cited
Reiss, Michael J. and Sue Dale Tunnicliffe. 2011. Dioramas as depictions of reality and opportunities for learning in biology. Curator: The Museum Journal.
54(4): 447-459

This paper can be purchased online for $35 or obtained by searching the stacks at your local college library.


Also See
Teachers view humans as separate from the environment

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The Botanical Artist as Naturalist

Posted in botanical art, botanical illustration, Education, natural science illustration, tagged , , , , on September 2, 2011 |

In The Importance of Naturalists as Teachers & the Use of Natural History as a Teaching Tool, James J. Krupa discusses the demise of naturalists in academia. He expands upon a conversation started by biologists Reed F. Noss (1996) and Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) in the late 1990s about the concern that “keyboard” ecologists are replacing traditional field ecologists and that there is an urgent need to cultivate a new generation of naturalists (Krupa, 2000). In response to their concerns, Krupa (2000) proposes an approach teachers at all grade levels can use to use natural history as a teaching tool in their classrooms.

Krupa (2000) suggests teachers…

  • Bring their own field experiences into the classroom.
  • Create outdoor experiences on campus.
  • Go on a day trip not too far from campus.
  • Take students to a biological field station.
  • Plan a weekend field trip for their students.

If organismic biology was part of your upbringing in college (especially if you are of a certain age), Krupa’s suggestions will hardly be revolutionary. His suggestions will be very familiar and you probably have your own stories about memorable field trips and weekends spent at biological field stations. However at a time when outdoor experiences are being replaced by multimedia and Web-based classroom activities (Krupa, 2000), the seemingly obvious suggestions above are perhaps not so obvious at all.

In his own classroom, Krupa’s goal is to turn his students on to natural history by creating firsthand experiences either through his slides and personal stories or through live experiences in the field (Krupa, 2000). He wants students to feel nature before they read about it. He calls this first experience an “awareness exercise” (Krupa, 2000) that can only be achieved through observation. Krupa (2000) argues that his traditional approach allows for “spontaneity, discovery and awareness”, experiences that are not possible through the use of “pre-planned, question-oriented exercises” (Krupa, 2000).


Are you a naturalist?

Krupa (2000) defines a naturalist as someone with “extensive knowledge of the organism’s behavior, ecology, distribution, systematics and life history.”

Do you think of yourself as a naturalist when you draw or paint?

When you work…

    You study your subjects in great detail.

    You observe and document how they grow and how they move.

    You are mindful of each phase of your subject’s life cycle.

    You look up what you do not know about your subject.

    Then you tell your subject’s story through your work.

Are you a naturalist?

If you’ve never thought of yourself as one, why not?

One of the possible causes behind naturalists’ declining numbers is that the word itself stirs up negative imagery (Futuyma (1998) as stated in Krupa, 2000). Biologists don’t want the “naturalist” label assigned to them. How about you?

What are your first thoughts and emotions when you hear the word naturalist?

You do not need a physical classroom or be fully employed teaching the “how to” lessons of botanical art to teach people about plants or to create the “awareness exercise” Krupa (2000) speaks about. There are many ways to be a teacher.

How do you teach people about plants through your art?


Literature Cited

Futumya, Douglas J. 1998. Wherefore and whither the naturalist? The American Naturalist. 151(1): 1-6. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/an.1998.151.issue-1>

Krupa, James J. 2000. The importance of naturalists as teachers & the use of natural history as a teaching tool. The American Biology Teacher. 62(8): 553-558. http://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/index.php?p=451>

Noss, Reed F. 1996. The naturalists are dying off. Conservation Biology. 10(1): 1-3. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10010001.x/abstract>

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Make Students Better Observers This School Year

Posted in botanical art, botanical illustration, Drawing, Education, sketchbook, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2011 |

It’s a new school year.

Are you tossing around the idea of incorporating drawing into your curriculum? Wondering how you should start?

Consider the approach taken by Harry Weekes in Drawing Students Out: Using Sketching Exercises to Hone Observation Skills. Instead of treating drawing activities as special projects, Weekes treats drawing as an act no different than breathing or looking across the room at the chalkboard. Drawing (excuse me, observing) is simply an expectation he has of all his students. He establishes the drawing culture in his classroom by calling “drawing exercises”, “observation exercises” (Weekes, 2005) and by reminding the students in his 9th grade biology class that observing and recording are what biologists do.

Drawing is a priority in Weekes’ class for the following reasons:

  • Drawing improves observation skills.
  • Drawing requires students to sit still and look.
  • He wants students to stop thinking they are “nonartists” (Weekes, 2005).
  • He wants to slow students down as they “navigate the social river that is adolescence on a current of hormones” (Weekes, 2005).

Because Weekes’ objective is to make “better observers” not “better drawers” (Weekes, 2005), he uses drawing as a learning tool whenever he can throughout the school year, regardless of the subject matter. Doing so not only reinforces the drawing culture he creates in his classroom, it also satisfies Standards.

The way he assesses the visual journal required of students contributes to its success as a learning tool and helps to downplay the “art” students are asked to create. Since students’ sketchbooks are used as tools for collecting observations, it is the quality of the observations recorded that is graded, not the quality of the artwork. Weekes (2005) states he is always surprised by the quality of student observations and the illustrations they produce.

By making students “better observers” (Weekes, 2005), Weekes is making better biologists and, as a result, scientifically literate citizens.

This article is available for purchase online for 99¢. See link below.


Literature Cited
Weekes, Harry. 2005. Drawing students out: using sketching exercises to hone observation skills. The Science Teacher. January. Web. <http://learningcenter.nsta.org/product_detail.aspx?id=10.2505/4/tst05_072_01_34>. [accessed 25 August 2011]


Related

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Scientific Illustrators & Biologists Inspire Each Other at GNSI Meeting

Posted in Education, natural science illustration, Special Events, tagged , , on July 12, 2011 |

Today I write to you from the annual meeting of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI). Illustrators and biologists have gathered in Olympia, Washington to learn about new techniques, new research and to catch-up with old friends. I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet people with whom I have an established email history. How nice it has been to finally meet them in person!

While only 24 hours have transpired on this very quick visit, I have been inspired several times over and have learned so much. My conference experience began with the Portfolio Sharing session. During this type of a session, illustrators open up their portfolios and discuss their work with others. On view are items such as educational posters, botanical illustrations, medical illustrations, textbook illustrations, instructions about how to use medical equipment, and other images representing the many ways scientific information is presented visually to the public. This session reminds you of how much of what we know and understand about the world is because a scientific illustrator helped us see it and understand it. Look around you. What did you learn from a scientific illustrator today?

As with any conference, there are so many learning opportunities and not nearly enough time. I have learned about the art, science and cultural connections between people and crows from Dr. David P. Craig, humpback whales from Dr. Fred Sharpe, aquatic insects from Dr. Carri J. LeRoy and the art of papercutting from artist, Nikki McClure. At the Techniques Showcase I saw demonstrations about lettering in pen & ink by Trudy Nicholson, how to work with Denril vellum by Alice Tangerini, pen & ink techniques by Marjorie Leggitt, and the art of scrimshaw by Captain Suzan Wallace. I also saw examples of colored pencil illustrations on coquille paper by Scott Rawlins, spoke with Kristie Bruzenak the conference chair of the 2012 GNSI Conference and created a card with a linoleum stamp created by printmaker, Sylvia Portillo.

All of this was followed by yet another heavy dose of inspiration at the opening reception of the annual GNSI exhibition.

Today, I go back for more.

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Drawing as a Learning Tool in Biology

Posted in ArtPlantae Books, botanical illustration, Drawing, Education, general botany, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2011 | 4 Comments »

High school teachers, Brian C. Dempsey and B.J. Betz, describe how they use drawing as a learning tool in Biological Drawing: A Scientific Tool for Learning. They observed that while a lot of time is spent drawing during a typical biology lab, biology instructors do not take the time to teach students how to draw. In response to this observation, they incorporated structured drawing activities into a biology class and successfully taught students how to observe, describe, and draw.


Overview
Dempsey and Betz taught introductory drawing techniques to students in a 9th-grade biology class to enhance their observation skills and to make them better learners. The drawing activities and homework exercises they created were administered over a five-day period. During this time, students participated in exercises addressing observation, drawing from memory, the recording of texture, contour drawing, and the drawing of negative space. Most exercises were completed as homework, while class time was spent conducting directed activities.

Detailed descriptions of each activity and illustrated examples are included in Dempsey & Betz (2001). Here is a quick look at the exercises students completed.

    Exercise 1: Observing & Describing
    Students were instructed to sit with their backs towards each other. Each student took turns describing an object from nature to their partner, who could not see the object being described. Students were required to incorporate art-related terms into their descriptions (e.g., form, value, and color). Prior to this activity, students received instruction about terms used by artists during the drawing process.

    Exercise 2: Drawing from Memory
    In this exercise, students studied an object given to them by their teacher. After studying the object for a while, they put the object away and drew it from memory.

    Exercise 3: Textures & Surfaces
    Students collected as many textured items as they could find in their natural environment. Their recorded observations and texture rubbings were used to create a master list of textures and to launch a discussion about observation skills.

    Exercise 4: Contour Drawing
    After observing a classroom demonstration, students were instructed to create a contour drawing of an object at home. The construction of a contour drawing required students to observe carefully and to draw slowly while drawing what they observed.

    Exercise 5: Negative Space Drawing
    Students learned what negative space was and how to observe it. They then practiced their negative drawing skills.

    Exercise 6: Color Blending & Shading Techniques
    This lesson was taught in the classroom. Students learned different shading techniques and learned how to mix and blend colors. The student handout for this exercise is included in Dempsey & Betz (2001).

To assess if students knew how to use contour drawing, negative space, shading, and color in a biological drawing, Dempsey & Betz created a two-part project requiring students to apply their new skills. The first project was a take-home project requiring students to complete a drawing of a plant growing around their house. Students were graded on their use of contour drawing and negative space, their use of color blending and shading, their attention to detail, and the correct identification of their plant specimen. Dempsey & Betz established grading criteria by which student drawings were assessed. Their rubric and a copy of the handout students received are included in their article.

The second part of the assessment project was conducted in the laboratory and required students to apply their drawing skills while observing and comparing insect-pollinated flowers to wind-pollinated flowers during two 50-minute class periods. A detailed description of this activity is included in Dempsy & Betz (2001).

Since this initial program was conducted, Dempsy & Betz have revised their technique as necessary. They have also incorporated drawing lessons into a unit about human anatomy. In this unit, students apply their drawing skills while learning about bones and the origin and insertion of muscles.

Getting Started
Dempsey & Betz (2001) recommend teachers read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, take introductory drawing classes, and collaborate with the art teacher at their school. I would like to add the following resources to their recommendation:

  • The Art of Botanical Drawing: An Introductory Guide ($19.95) by Agathe Ravet-Haevermans, scientific illustrator at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Read about this informative sketchbook-style guide for beginners.
  • Botanical Drawing in Color: A Basic Guide to Mastering Realistic Form and Naturalistic Color ($24.99) by Wendy Hollender, botanical artist, author, and teacher. Read the review about this comprehensive guide.


Literature Cited
Dempsey, Brian C. and B.J. Betz. 2001. Biological drawing: a scientific tool for learning. American Biology Teacher 63(4): 271-279.

Search for The American Biology Teacher at a library near you (enter your location in the appropriate field).


Also See
Drawing with Graphite Eyes


How do you use drawing as a learning tool in your classroom?

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Watercolor Artist Captures Life at the Cellular Level

Posted in Special Articles & Interviews, tagged , , , on September 29, 2010 |

Wet and washy watercolor techniques can cause a lot of grief for some, but for artist Michele Banks, it sparked a passion with watercolor and an interest in the biology of life. Banks doesn’t paint plants, humans, and other animals. She paints what happens inside plants, humans, and other animals. On Friday September 24, 2010, TheScientist.com published an interview with Banks. Learn more about Michele Banks and her website at TheScientist.com.

Here is a glimpse of what you’ll find…

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Botanical Literacy Through Illustration

Posted in botanical art, botanical illustration, Special Announcements, Special Events, tagged , , , , on October 26, 2009 |

ArtPlantae brings botany and botanical art education to the largest women’s conference in the nation. Visit us at Booth #1915.

We may only have 100 square feet, but look at what you can do!

  • Learn about ArtPlantae’s research to improve botanical literacy.
  • Discover what there is to learn at ArtPlantaeToday.com.
  • Discover instructional books about drawing and painting plants.
  • Learn about plant books used by botanical illustrators.
  • Be inspired by the contemporary botanical art collection of Dr. Shirley Sherwood.
  • Delight in viewing a baby elephant display copy of Botanical Magnifica
  • Turn your inspiration into art! Moleskine® sketchbooks and watercolor notebooks available for purchase.
  • Discover clever interchangeable notebooks from StartHereNY®.
  • See the revealing paper in Whitelines® notebooks.
  • See sketchbooks and art supplies for children.
  • Buy botanical art prints, cards, notepads, or bookmarks for the gardener in your life.
  • Learn about California’s two botanical art groups and the only botanical art certificate program in California.

Don’t forget to doodle in our Guest Sketchbook!

Related Items:

Posters
A free Botanica Magnifica poster for teachers, nature centers, or libraries. Limited supply. While supplies last.

Watch the Women’s Conference Live
Go to www.womensconference.org to watch the LIVE WEBCAST on October 27th beginning at 8:00 AM PDT.

Follow Us on Twitter
We’ll do our best to tweet from the floor of The Village. Go to @artplantae or check the feed in the column to your right. The feed box has been expanded for this event.

Visit ArtPlantae Books
A companion resource specializing in books about botanical art history, botanical art instruction, botany, plant identification, economic botany, and natural history.

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