Domestic Canary
Scientific illustration of a canary created using Prismacolor verithin colored pencils, ink, Photoshop, and Illustrator
Here is the final technical illustration of a canary. I focused on the entire bird (side and wing structure) with cutaway views of skin, muscle, skeletal structure of the wing, and organs.
The purpose of my illustration is to educate about bird anatomy. The audience is high school biology students. It will be in the format of a poster. I chose not to include anything in the background because I didn't want anything to distract from the annotations and from the ultimate purpose of learning. I also left it white because I am going for the style of a vintage scientific illustration; most of them do not have backgrounds.
I drew the birds and the insides separately using artist quality Prismacolor verithin colored pencils and a thin Sharpie. I then put the images into Photoshop to make precise selections, saved them as a PNG with a transparent background and moved them over to Illustrator. There I put the birds and parts together and made the annotations.
I changed the dashed lines from a medium grey to a dark grey so they are easier to see on top of the bird. I left the annotations medium grey so they don't distract from the illustration.
Here is a view of the canary as a work in progress. The dashed line pointing to the beak shows how the annotations for the rest of the body parts will look. I chose grey for the font and dashed line so that the test will not overshadow the canary.
My next step is to draw the canary from another angle showing the back for a detailed look at wing structure. I will then draw and color organs individually or in groups and place them into Illustrator on top of the bird for a ghost/cutaway view of parts of skin, muscles, skeletal structure, and organs.My 'a-ha!' moment was when I realized I can draw the entire bird first and then change to opacity for the ghost/cutaway views of organs and etc.
My next step is to draw the canary from another angle showing the back for a detailed look at wing structure. I will then draw and color organs individually or in groups and place them into Illustrator on top of the bird for a ghost/cutaway view of parts of skin, muscles, skeletal structure, and organs.My 'a-ha!' moment was when I realized I can draw the entire bird first and then change to opacity for the ghost/cutaway views of organs and etc.
