Artwork on this page is available
Science Art in
books
exhibits
installations
magazines and
journals
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on the web
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Contact: darrylwheye@gmail.com
St. Lawrence Island, Alaska poster and postcard of an Arctic Loon
ink and colored charcoal
poster: 18 x 24 inches; bird portraits: 11 x 14 inches
1993
Products to encourage bird-based ecotourism of this island 35 miles off the coast of Siberia where avid birders can see species rarely seen in mainland North America.
scroll
John James Audubon (1785-1851) with Gun and Wild Turkey
pencil 16 x 20 inches
1997
One of the 30 drawings of bird art luminaries (above) produced for The Biology of Birds, an experimental website used in two Stanford University classes and later formed the basis for the book, Humans, Nature, and Birds: Science Art from Cave Walls to Computer Screens (2008).
Audubon's niche in the development of ornithology (see row 2, column 6)... includes his roles as artist, field researcher, compiler, lister (made lists of birds), conservationist, and popularizer. By penetrating and exploring the vast and quickly changing eastern portion of the U.S., Audubon created a pictorial record whose appeal has become so mainstream that more than a century after his death, people who know little about birds or art are aware that he was a bird artist. That the primary U.S. birding organization adopted his name gives testimony to his very secure niche.
Explanation of the icons in this portrait...His 9-volume Birds of America (1840-1844) includes 435 plates that illustrate 487 species (many of which the artist shot) positioned in lifelike poses. Today, at auction, a single print brings at least twenty times the original subscription price of the entire Elephant Folio of 435 prints. The American Turkey was the first plate produced for Birds in America. It took Audubon 23 hours to "cover" the 4'8" x 5'8" canvas.
Click for for a few Audubon drawings in this site.
Hand and Swan
drawing for animation
pencil 12 x 12 inches
1998
One of twelve pictures for an animation on Salmonella.
Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment (JRGCE)
Stanford University
ink and colored charcoal
c. 2003
The drawing shows 3 of 32 circular plots "designed to explore the impact on grassland ecosystems of four major components of global change that are caused, at least partially, by burning of fossil fuels: warming, elevated CO2, increased precipitation, and increased nitrogen deposition. This is the first study to examine these four factors in a natural ecosystem."
The circular plots were divided into quarters. You can (barely) see how varying treatments changed the plants within the plot.
A report of the first 3 years of study, "Grassland Responses to Global Environmental Changes Suppressed by Elevated CO2", was published in Science (December 6, 2002). The experiment continued until 2018.
Click for more on this fascinating--and important--experiment.