Stories by Kalliopi Monoyios

This week, the only dedicated science illustration conference in the country is taking place in Boulder, CO. The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators’ annual gathering is in full swing and there are fascinating developments to convey.

For those of you who have been following the story of Bone Dusters Paleo Ale, the beer made with yeast living on a 35-million-year old whale fossil, there’s exciting news out of Lost Rhino Brewery today.

Source: Katie McKissick’s Symbiartic post: Don’t Be a Water Jerk. Image © Katie McKissick Few things are more inviting than a flawless green turf, stretching out before you like a luscious green tumbling mat – unless, of course, that lawn is in the Southwestern United States and you are aware of the severity of the [...]

Take a break from the heat this summer to step into some cool galleries exhibiting scienceart. If the exhibits keep pouring in at this rate, I’ll have to split up this post by region.

When we’re young, we quietly take stock of those around us and reject notions that we will eventually gain weight, deflate, wrinkle and sag.

Image Credit: © Alex Wild Source: Recipe For A Photograph #4: The Emerging Mosquito, on Compound Eye As the weather warms and spring marches into summer, mosquito pupae are shedding their skins and emerging from stagnant pools to search for warm mammalian blood.

If you’ve ever wondered what it would take to combine your love of science and art, there is a conference on the horizon that might just be the inspiration you’ve been waiting for.

The following project constitutes a half-hour activity for 3-, 4-, or 5-year olds. It includes the entire process from finding fossils to putting the recovered pieces together like a puzzle to drawing our best guess at what it looked like in life.

Artist: Darren Naish Source: Monitor musings, varanid variables, goannasaurian goings-on... it's about monitor lizards, by Darren Naish on Tetrapod Zoology If you’re not a herpetologist, you may be of the mindset that lizards all look the same, but that would only expose you for what you are: a human primate, finely attuned to the faces [...]

This happens more often than you’d think: You tell someone you are an illustrator. They ask you a few questions and then get to what’s really on their mind: “So, do you do all your work on the computer or do you draw everything by hand?” When you respond that you do some (or all) [...]

If you appreciate John J. Audubon’s exacting detail and beautiful compositions and you marvel at the encyclopedic knowledge and delicate illustrations in the famous Sibley Bird Guides you may be interested to know that there are many contemporary masters following in their footsteps today.

Sometimes you never know where your work will end up. Take this figure depicting the evolution of whales that I created for Jerry Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True.

This is the dish on the latest exhibits combining science and art around the country. This time the prize for the most bumpin’ scienceArt scene goes to the Northeast, amirite?

Eighteen years ago this July, a group of 14 adventurers unloaded tents, gear, food, canoes, and two guitars from the back of a big old bus and loaded them into 7 canoes in a nondescript boat launch outside of Yellowknife, NWT.

Last night the final episode of the 3-part series of PBS’s adaptation of Neil Shubin’s book Your Inner Fish aired in most of the country (although some PBS stations have delayed the last episode until next week… If you didn’t catch the series, you can stream them online for a short period here.) If tweets [...]

If the key to happiness is appreciating the little things in life, then take a moment to appreciate the claw of a microscopic mite only 600 µm long.

Friends and colleagues who know that I illustrated Neil Shubin’s first book, Your Inner Fish, have been asking if I was involved in the three-part PBS series hosted by Shubin that will air next week on April 9th.

Two weeks from today, on April 9th, PBS will air the first of a three-part series adapted from Neil Shubin’s popular book, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body.

Source: 500-Pound "Chicken from Hell" Dinosaur Once Roamed North America by Kate Wong at Observations Illustration credit: Mark Klingler, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Nothing you could find in any hen house could prepare you for the 11.5-foot tall, 500-lb.

With craft brewing on the rise and many breweries tinkering with flavorings that range from the somewhat obvious (honey or citrus) to the eyebrow-raising (jalapeño, hemp, or even peanut butter cup) it was only a matter of time before someone stared a 35-million year old fossil in the face and thought, “would you make a [...]

Last week Getty announced that they would release 35 million of their copyrighted images for editorial and commentary use with a handy embed tool.

When illustrators embark upon a new illustration, hours of research and work go into constructing a scene that is believable, powerful, and informative.

Source: ScienceArt On View in March/April 2014 on Symbiartic Populations of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are rapidly declining worldwide, and those that remain are increasingly falling victim to environmental pollutants that cause deformities such as extra limbs and ambiguous sexual organs.

A fresh batch of exhibits combining science and art are going up around the country, plus, there’s still time to catch some of the longer running exhibits that go through the middle of 2014.