Urban Wildlife

Over the course of a 30 year career in Scientific Illustration, one subject that has been revisited again and again is the intersection of nature and the urban landscape. Starting with a series of field guides commissioned by the NYC Parks department, these illustrations have attempted to highlight the challenges and celebrate the resiliency of the natural world around us.

Wraparound cover for NYC Park’s Field Guide to Van Cortland Park. 1991 Gouache on illustration board

Evening Commute 2023 Gouache on Illustration Board

Specimen Renderings

Each drawing represents weeks of research followed by many days of careful rendering. Fossil specimens are typically crushed, discolored, and otherwise distorted. Photography is often an unsatisfactory option, necessitating the kind of deep rendering shown here. Reconstruction is based on available material - sometimes mirroring existing structures, left to right; sometimes combining information from more than one individual. Rendering techniques range from graphite pencil to digital painting, but are now mostly a hybrid of the two.

Fossil Turtle Skulls - Graphite and Digital