About the illustration:
An example of a scientific illustration class project. The technique, briefly, is:
1) Develop an outline of the illustration in light pencil on smooth illustration board.
2) Put in the tone of the illustration, using graphite (carbon dust from scraping a B pencil with an exacto blade) and a cotton swab (Q-Tip).
3) Refine the dark areas and pull out the light areas using a kneadable eraser. Use a pencil directly only with a very light hand to fill in spotty areas.
For more information about the technique, see: Scientific Illustration : A Guide for the Beginning Artist
By Zbigniew Jastrzebski, the teacher of the class in which the mink skull illustration above was produced. This book is out of print but is available used. Jastrzebski was a teacher of scientific illustration at the School of the Art Institute at Chicago. The book correlates well with projects he taught in class. More examples of iIllustrations I produced while in his class:
