Gina Mikel, Scientific Illustrator
Welcome to my website.
Free-lance projects have included illustrating:
- a panorama of a coral reef and various marine plants and animals for Smithsonian Institute
- insects and other invertebrates for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
- various animals for the California Science Center Foundation
- fish, frogs, and birds for the JASON Project produced by Wisconsin Sea Grant
- bird and botanical illustrations for Organic Gardening, FLW Outdoors, and Wine and Spirits Magazines
- primate illustration for the Field Museum of Natural History
- cut-away landscape illustrations for the Brooklyn Children's Museum
- scientific illustrations for Harcourt-Brace, Bayer, and others
All can be viewed in "thumbnail" size on the Portfolio page. Projects that are in the works: a panorama of a coral reef for the Smithsonian.
I work by hand, in traditional media, primarily in watercolor or colored pencils. Lately I've been using watercolor colored pencils with watercolor and gouache. The watercolor colored pencils are soluable when mixed with water.
My website has been online since 1996. The section about scientific illustrators' artwork grew out of my web site "favorites", in an effort to keep them organized. It continues to be a work in progress and has been a great learning experience. I also co-founded a web site about childhood language disorders, Speechville.
I received a Bachelor of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1988 (merit scholarship recipient, 1984 to 1988), studying under scientific Illustrator Zbigniew Jastrzebski, among others. Professional memberships include the Guild of Graphic Artists, the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, and the American Society of Botanic Artists.
My husband, two children, conure, cat, dog, and I currently live in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri , after having spent ten years in Austin, Texas and a few years in both Florida and Chicago. Our home sits on several acres adjacent to a state nature reserve, a perfect spot for a scientific illustrator!
Honeymoon Island, Florida, Watercolor
Keywords related to art on this page: free-lance artist, freelance, professional, scientific illustrator, botanical, fish, bird, painter, resume, resume, art portfolio
