Guild of Natural Science Illustrators

The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (GNSI) held its annual meeting this week in Ithaca, New York. This organization includes medical illustrators, bird, insect, and botanical artists, paleoartists, and illustrators who work for natural history museums.

A juried exhibit of art by Guild members is currently showing at the Cornell Campus in Sibley Hall, with about 60/40 digital/traditional media, with detailed paintings of fish, cetaceans, insects, dinosaurs, and plants. Here Michael Rothman appears beside his acrylic painting of a forest floor with flying insects.

The emphasis of the convention is the open sharing of practical skills and techniques. Young artists entering the field of natural science illustration report that they’ve learned a tremendous amount from the presentations of other members of the Guild.

Nearby the convention is the Museum of the Earth, which tells the history of life on earth, concentrating on the fossil heritage of the northeastern United States. The museum's director, Warren D. Allmon, was a keynote speaker at the GNSI convention. A highlight of the 8,000 feet of permanent exhibition space is the Hyde Park Mastodon, above, one of the most complete mastodon skeletons in the world.
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Museum of the Earth website, link
GNSI Conference, link.
History of the GNSI, link.