Hi everyone! Welcome to my latest blog post. This blog will be updated throughout my progress on this scientific illustration, so stay tuned!
To begin, I used the hardest graphite pencil I have, a Derwent Graphic 4H to sketch out the shape of the sargassum. The paper that I used was Strathmore Bristol Paper (11 x 17in.). To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of this paper because it is quite smooth and hard to erase, but that was the only the paper I was able to buy, given time constraints.
Nonetheless, I attempted to make my drawing accurate to the measurements of the sargassum I took while in the field. My drawing is by a magnification of 2, so all the widths, heights, diameters are double what they were in the actual organism. The organism itself was around 4.5 inches in height, and I felt that was way too small to depict in a large-scale drawing like this.
As Ann Swan (2010) has suggested, I measured out a box which I would draw my subject -- that way none of the parts would get cut off. I also left space on the page for the drawing mat. My next step was to make sure all the air bladders and shapes matched closely with the reference photo of the specimen. Since I had measured the largest blade of the algae, I doubled this number to scale the size of the blades. Drawing the brown algae took me many, many hours -- something, which in full honesty, I did not expect to be this difficult to draw.
Once I was done drawing sargassum in the 4H pencil, I used another sheet of the Bristol paper to make value scales of the different colors I would be using in this drawing. Because my brown selection of Prismacolor colored pencils is quite limited, I opted to also use my Crayola colored pencils as well as an old Kodak colored pencil (which unfortunately had no identification labels on it). I then drew the stoniferous hydroids that were present throughout the algae.
After that, I shaded, with a gray colored pencil, the areas of the brown algae that are the darkest as Swan (2010) highlights in her book. From there, I colored the darkest parts of the subject (the dark brown tones). In order to achieve this the best way I could, I temporarily converted my reference photos into black and white photos to assess where I needed to shade for darker tones.
I then colored everything else. I did a little bit of stippling on the air bladders, and I added lines and more hydroids in areas which I believed they were. The reference photo I had was a bit blurry with this information since the hydroids were very small, but I tried my best! For the hydroids, they were drawn with the 4H graphite pencil, but then layered with the white Prismacolor Premier colored pencil.
Overall, I am proud of what I was able to accomplish; although I do think the type of paper made blending extremely difficult. Also, because I was working with multiple manufacturers, I think this also contributed to the blending issues I had. Nonetheless, I am happy with the level of three-dimensionality of the illustration, as that is something I have struggled with. Perhaps I might try out the acrylic paper next time!
The next step for me is to label the structures of the sargassum!
(I used a white pencil here and a Q-tip to blend the colors a bit more)
Sargassum fluitans / Broad-leaved Gulfweed
(note since this picture was taken, I have added a date to the illustration. See Blog Post #10.)
(594 words)
Work Cited
Swan, Ann. Botanical Portraits with Colored Pencils. B.E.S. Publishing, 2010.
Scientific Information:
In this piece, I have illustrated broad-leaved gulfweed, or, Sargassum fluitans, a pelagic species of brown algae that generally inhabits the open ocean. While floating as mats in the ocean, Sargassum fluitans provide a habitat for a wide range of organisms including shrimp, crab, fish, turtle hatchlings and birds (NOAA). Because of its essential role as a habitat for various organisms, it has special protections conferred by the US federal government. Washed-up sargassum can even help sustain Florida shorelines, as it can help mitigate erosion and provide plants with nutrients (Burton).
Sargassum is commonly found in the Sargasso Sea (an area between the United States and West Africa) and the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Sargassum fluitans is native to Western Central Atlantic. However, as of 2011, the brown seaweed has exploded in areas which it had not before such as portions of the eastern Caribbean Sea (Mendoza-Becerril et al. 2). In recent years, Florida’s beaches have seen an influx of sargassum blooms, which scientists hypothesize is due to the increase in nutrient runoff from the Amazon and Mississippi Rivers (Burton). While on Florida’s beaches, the sargassum begins to decay and releases hydrogen sulfide gas which can negatively impact people with asthma (Burton). While floating in the ocean in large blooms, sargassum can block sunlight for other organisms such as sea grasses and corals as well as smother them (Burton).
My illustration also demonstrates a commensalistic relationship between the sargassum and another species – an epibiont that belongs to the genus Aglaophenia (Mendoza-Becerril et al. 1). The sargassum provides a substrate for colonies of this animal species to inhabit. The specimen had numerous stoloniferous hydroids attached to it – colonies spanning the stipe and blades of the sargassum.
(285 words)
Works Cited
Burton, Rebecca. "Sargassum: Seaweed or Brown Algae." Florida Museum, 15 July 2018, www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/earth-systems/blog/sargassum-seaweed-or-brown-algae/.
Mendoza-Becerril, María A., et al. "Epibiont hydroids on beachcast Sargassum in the Mexican Caribbean." PeerJ, vol. 8, 24 Aug. 2020, p. E9795.
NOAA. "What is the Sargasso Sea?" NOAA's National Ocean Service, 4 Jan. 2021, oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sargassosea.html.
Comments