"Pitahui" Graphite on vellum, 1995, digitally restored
(content warning: a bit gruesome)
Most people are probably unaware of the variety of dirty jobs encountered by your average biologist. For me personally, this has included anything from cutting thin slices of human brain tissue to obtaining pap smears from several hundred rats...daily (don’t ask). A science illustrator is not exempt from unsavory tasks, as we’re often illustrating some aspect of anatomy, or a medical procedure.
As a student I had to produce a watercolor in the style of John J. Audubon, who, as I mentioned previously, shot and then posed his subjects. Thankfully, we just had to sort through a fridge full of roadkill (kindly collected by some rangers) and pick our specimen. The challenge was to create a lifelike painting from something that really no longer resembled its living state. My subject was an Eastern blue jay, a bit flat, with it’s head stuck to the left. All I could think to do was to paint the bird on some hawthorn branches, grabbing berries with its beak.
"Eastern Blue Jay" Watercolor on cold press paper, 1995
My next bird was a commission by someone studying pitahuis, poisonous birds from New Guinea. These were the days before everyone had a camera in their back pocket, and no one had taken a photo of this bird. My only reference was at the Field Museum of Natural History, and I was a bit apprehensive about drawing anything poisonous, especially since the poison was in the feathers.
After the obligatory tour of the research area, which included an aquarium full of dermestid beetles cleaning up a skeleton for display, I was left with a small, dusty box, reeking of formaldehyde. My eyes watering badly, I carefully opened the box, picked up the bird with gloved hands...and dropped it.
The poor pitahui made the blue jay look like a living masterpiece. By the time I turned its cigar-shaped contour into a bird, I realised the museum had closed. I had survived the pitahui. Now I was certain I was going to greet the Screaming Mummy as I found my way out of the dark museum.
Courtesy of Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Pitahui incertus, collected in 1909