Introduction for the new year Writing (blog posts)_1

As it is a new year, I need to re-introduce myself and the work that I do. My name is Gretchen Burns, and this is my second year as a senior at Pittsburg State University. I am a double major in Field/ Environmental Biology and Commercial Art, or as it's getting changed to, Illustration and Visual Studies. (I think.)

My goal after completing my undergraduate work is to attend an American Medical Association accredited school and obtain a Master's degree of Fine Art in Medical and Biological Illustration and continue on into a career of emphasis.

My work has ranged all over the board. At one point in time, I was a jewelry major, but I determined that becoming a commercial art major would be more to the point of my goals. Currently, I work in a lot of ink and pencil. One of my new interests is seeing what I can do with Prismacolor art markers. I experimented some last semester and would really like to push myself further.

Prismacolor art marker piece from Fall 2014

Another Prismacolor art marker piece created in Fall 2014

More Prismacolor art marker pieces from Fall 2014

Inked piece from Fall 2014

I enjoy my classes because they teach me new ways to work with media, or new techniques to use. Hopefully, my work in the future will be illustrations that are featured in medical and biological journals, magazines, textbooks, etc. I'm hoping to learn how to make my art and illustrations more available toward other venues, but at the moment, I have not yet learned those.

As common as this sounds, I look to Leonardo da Vinci's illustrations from his journals for inspiration on illustration. He was extremely curious about how things worked, moved and changed and studied them. He kept notebooks and sketched everything out, in turn, teaching himself to become a better artist.

A benefit for me this current semester is that I am taking Life Drawing. Drawing the human figure is something that I have struggled in before, but now I am learning what is certainly needed, from the skeleton to muscles and beyond.

A personal goal of mine this semester is to illustrate the different state birds, trees, flowers, etc. I find this topic to be interesting in the variety that occurs, and I believe that this will help me to hone my skills and reach out to others that I had not previously thought about on a naturalist level of biology.