Creative art and scientific illustration (and ice cream) by Kelly S. Berger
Medium: Ink on Sketchbook Paper
Size: 8.5″ x 11″
Date Completed: May 2007
Other Information: This was one of the intermediate versions of an eventual watercolor piece. To be honest, the ink drawing turned out much better than the watercolor. I think skunk cabbages are beautiful plants. The flowers actually smell pretty, if you don’t bruise the leaves and get skunk smell in the air.
Medium: Colored Pencil on Brown Paper
Size: 5″ x 7″
Date Completed: September 2007
Other Information: I saw this little cutie in Yellowstone National Park and snapped several photos. Later I sat down and drew it on “natural” fiber paper. I think the browns go quite well together.
Medium: Colored Pencil, ink and acrylic paint on Duralene
Size: 11″ x 14″
Date Completed: December 2006
Other Information: Duralene is a clear-plastic sheet, much like an overhead-projector transparency (but higher quality). It’s a bit cloudy but still see-through. This way both sides of the page can be used (in this case, colored pencil and ink on the front, acrylic on the back).
Since I have a plethora of frozen huckleberries and the warm weather is causing my ice cream stash to disappear fast, I am making a lot of huckleberry ice cream! Here are two variants I made recently (I’ll be posting a 3rd soon, too!).
Huckleberry-Chocolate Ice Cream
(Makes 1 quart of ice cream)
I love chocolate so there was no way I was going to neglect this most important of ingredients.
Ingredients
Directions
Huckleberry-Rhubarb Ice Cream Recipe
(makes 1 quart of ice cream)
I was searching for another way to make (yet another) huckleberry ice cream intriguing. I had some leftover rhubarb in the freezer and decided to take advantage of a “secret ingredient”. When I served this up, most of my friends loved it, but no one could guess the “vegetable” that made the tangy background flavor.
Ingredients
Directions
Medium: Watercolors on Crescent Illustration Board
Size: 11″ x 12″
Date Completed: February 2007
Other Information: Humboldt Penguins are one of the strange penguin species that do not live in Antarctic. They live in South American along the coasts in the (you guessed it) Humboldt current. The Humboldt current is full of cold water and is nutrient rich; meaning the penguins feed happily on cold-water-loving fish species.
Medium: Carbon Dust
Size: 6″ x 9″
Date Completed: October 2006
Other Information: Ammonites are a kind of prehistoric invertebrate. I find them incredibly gorgeous. This one was drawn from a fossil that was about an inch across.
One of today’s ice cream experiments yielded Yerba Mate ice cream.
Yerba Mate is a plant from South America that is actually related to the Holly tree. It’s used like tea leaves and is supposed to invigorate and awaken those who drink it.
A Jar full of Yerba Mate leaves
The Recipe:
(Makes 1 pint of ice cream)
Ingredients
Directions
Sadly, I neglected to photograph the ice cream before I gave it away. :( I’m still getting the hang of this whole ice cream blogging thing.
Tosena splendida
Medium: Scratchboard.
Size: 11″ x 14″
Date Completed: December 2006.
Other Information: The Tosena splendida is a cicada species native to Thailand. The particular individual in this piece is female (that’s not a stinger on her abdomen, that’s an ovipositor so she can lay eggs under tree bark).
Magnificent Frigatebird
Medium: The bird is carbon dust and colored pencil on mylar drafting film. The background was painted with watercolors on illustration board.
Size: 11″ x 15″
Date Completed: June 2007
Other Information: Magnificent Frigatebirds are common in the tropics. When I was studying abroad in the Galapagos Islands they were everywhere. They are amazing, especially when they just glide along with boats and hitch a ride on the wind right over your head.
The image here is crooked because I neglected to scan it before framing it.
