Procedural Skills Curriculum Illustrations

 For The Keck School of Medicine's Procedural Skills Curriculum booklet

Arrow from Papua New Guinea

This arrow head is constructed of bone (the barb) and what looks like some kind of horn or hoof (the head).

Bamboo and Bone Arrow Designs

These arrows are amazingly long- about 5.5 feet- and they have a variety of patterns that I rolled out so that they can be seen in their entirety. They are constructed of three components: the arrow head (bone), which fits into the top of the shaft (either a piece of wood or very thin bamboo). This in turn is fitted into a slightly larger stalk of bamboo. The binding is made of thin strips of plant fiber and the paste includes the blood from the hunters' testicles (ouch! ((I imagine))) I still haven't seen the bow that could shoot such huge arrows, but if I get the chance I'd love to draw that too. 

Water Lily (?) Pattern Tobacco Pipe

This bamboo pipe differs from the others because of its lizard skin wrappings (which were really fun to paint) All of the pipes with this pattern have this rich coloring. The first five pipes I drew were an ashy bamboo color and the designs looked as though they had been burned in. 

Sorcerer Stick

This sorcerer's stick is from Papua New Guinea, and it was considered to be an object of great power. When held upright,  the carvings resemble a human face.  When pointed directly at you or horizontally it takes on the form of a crocodile's head. 

Last Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

The Craziest Tobacco Pipe

Third Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

Bamboo Tobacco Pipes from Papua New Guinea

I have been spending a lot of time at the Smithsonian's Museum Support Center (MSC), where the bulk of the collections are stored. These tobacco pipes were collected by British anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon in the early 1900s. Dr. Bell asked me to visually "unroll" them to show the complete patterns. It would have been simplest to do rubbings of the pipes to get an accurate and quick layout, but because they are so old and delicate, I drew a grid on my paper and transferred points using a soft tape measure.

Last Akeke Pattern (for a while)

This akeke is unusual, because it seems to be a combination of multiple patterns. There will be a little break from these for a while, but Dr. Bell is trying to get more samples from the Pitt-Rivers Museum. 

The work does get a little repetitive, but it is for an exciting project called The Recovering Voices Initiative, which aims to document and preserve dying languages and technologies. These illustrations, along with some diagrams that I'm working on, will be made into a book. It will become a part of the Smithsonian archives,  and will be made freely available to anybody in Papua New Guinea who is interested in making or studying these baskets. 

Koi Paku and Rukoa Roko Roko

Koi Paku

Rukoa Roko Roko

I don't know that much about these patterns, but the bottom basket is used primarily for storing food, while the top basked is used for storing personal items. 

Papua New Guinean Akeke Baskets So Far

Because there are so many of these, and I don't want them taking up the whole blog, I consolidated them into one image. There will be twelve all together when it's done, so check back for additions!

Akeke Basket Patterns from Papua New Guinea

"Ropo" Star Pattern

"Omaro Ni'iri" Teeth of a Wood-Boring Insect

These are the beginning of a series of twelve basket patterns that were collected in the Purari Delta area of Papua New Guinea. Dr. Bell,an anthropology curator, is overseeing this project, and he explained that these baskets are some of the last remaining totemic patterns from this culture. Totems used to be guarded by the men, but as Christianity took over, villages destroyed images and patterns representing the old ways, and now these symbols are mostly seen in basketry, which is a women's craft. Ropo is a new pattern, and Omaro Ni'iri is a traditional pattern. 

Fruit Pigeons of New Guinea

Bottom Left: Purple Tailed Imperial Pigeon

Bottom Right: Zoe's Pigeon

Top: Rose Crowned Fruit Pigeon

Blue Faced Honeyeater & Banana Flower

Akeke Baskets from Papua New Guinea

Nile Crocodile

Iron in Photoshop

Sugarcane Varieties

from left to right:

ribbon cane

cayanna

louisiana purple

florida red

home green

pink cane

Camellia & Dissection- Watercolor

Giant Anteater- Watercolor

Grandpa's Plant Fossil- Watercolor

We always thought it looked like a feather.... 

The message on the back reads, "Fossil from Jurassic Shales which outcrop on the north flank of the Cleveland Hills in Yorkshire UK. 140,000,000 years old. To Alexis and Stefanie from Grandpa, July 1993."

Thumb Piano- Watercolor

Article Illustrations

For this project I created two illustrations for an article of my choice. The first one shows a katydid (not the same kind as in the article, because there are no reference photos) on a bamboo shoot, and the second shows a cutaway of a guadua bamboo stalk with a few of its inhabitants. The end of the article repeats itself because I needed to fill up the space. 

Life Inside Peruvian Guadua Bamboo

Weston Price Trompe L'oeil- gouache

This piece is inspired by Dr. Weston Price's travels to New Zealand. He found that the Maori living on their traditional diet were in particularly excellent health (only 1 in 2,000 teeth showing signs of decay, and no dental deformities). The diet was heavily based on shellfish and dried seaweed. The map and photographs are from his book, "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration". 

Nikola Tesla Conceptual/Editorial Piece

MIcrohabitat- Gouache

A collection of stones and shells from a beach in Pacific Grove

Grey Heron Spear Fishing- Photoshop

Caiman

Thanks to Gillian for the wonderful source material!

Military Macaw

Blunt Trauma to the Chest

Some Practice Watercolor Textures

Spindle Shell in Photoshop

Ladybug on Duralene

Jewel Beetle on Duralene

Acrylic Study- olive branch

colored pencil exercises

I did the one on the right first, and then for the other one I turned the jar on its side to get the long highlight, which I think adds more dimension. The one on the left is an old Vicks jar and the one on the right is an old Noxema jar.