Darling Center Hosting Illustration Workshop

The University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center in Walpole will offer a Natural Science Illustration Workshop July 16-20. The workshop is open to anyone who wants to illustrate a natural history journal with sketches or watercolor, hone
observational skills and artistic talents to create scientifically accurate drawings, or bring art and science into the classroom.

Instructor David Wheeler, who teaches at the State University of New York’s Empire State College, Russell Sage College for Women and Pratt Institute’s Center Extension Campus at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, will lead the workshop.

Participants will have the opportunity to collect and draw live specimens from the local marine environment, as well as work with Wheeler’s collection of shells, bones and artifacts. Previous workshop participants have included high school and college students, K-12 educators, artists and illustrators interested in natural sciences, art, anthropology and archaeology. No prior art training is required.

Wheeler is a veteran marine science illustrator whose artwork is in the permanent collections of museums, universities, and marine centers in this country and abroad. He has made life-sized models of dinosaurs for the American Museum of Natural History and the Osaka Museum of Natural History in Japan.

The cost of the five-day workshop is $370. Room and board at the Darling Marine Center are available for an additional fee. Additional course information and registration material are available on the DMC website. The registration deadline is June 1.

Contact: Linda Healy, (207) 563-3146 ext. 200 or lhealy@maine.edu