THE  INTERVIEW:

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your background? How did your interests in biology and art first come together, and what led you toward biological illustration?

I was born and grew up in São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Although it’s a huge city now, at that time there were still many natural areas near my house. I also had many experiences in the countryside during my childhood, when I began to get involved with and become fascinated by nature. Currently, I live in Vinhedo, a relatively small city near São Paulo (approximately 50 miles away). Apart from art, my other interests involve gardening, cultivating trees, studying music, science, philosophy, religions, practicing meditation and self-investigation. I have been fascinated by both drawing and observing life forms since childhood. So studying biology and art was just a natural decision. Both interests started to blend together early in the '90s, during my days in college, where I studied Biological Sciences. As I entered the program of initiation to research in the laboratory of Systematic Botany, I loved flipping through the books in the lab's library, especially the ancient collections of  "Flora Brasiliensis" or "Pflanzenfamilien" (from the XIX Century), which contain fantastic woodcut or copperplate engravings, and lithographs, all black & white. Those would strongly inspire, for example, my quest for a refined hatching technique with pen nib & ink.
 
Another book that inspired me and triggered my interest was "Botanical Masters" curated by William Stearn and released in the early ‘90s. The magnificent watercolors in this book, made by some great botanical artists of that period, led me to feel a sort of fresh and ineffable sensation that I hadn’t ever experienced before with any other form of art. Trying to describe the indescribable, I'd say that I felt as though the pictures had life on their own. I mean, that feeling was not about the life of the plants depicted there, but rather the life of the very pictures. These experiences got me irremediably hooked on botanical art and natural sciences illustration ever since. 

Much of your work focuses on plants and animals. What draws you to illustrating the natural world, and how do you decide what organisms to portray?

That's a very thoughtful question. Although my first guess would be to respond that it is the life of the organisms that draws me to represent them, I had an immediate insight telling me that I sense a kind of "aliveness" in anything I draw, be it rocks, clouds, buildings, or fabrics. So my guess is that I'm drawn to life forms because of their hypnotic beauty and architecture. What has me fascinated is how the margins or veins of a leaf are arranged, how the light particularly reflects or is absorbed, the textures, richness of color, the intricate elegance, or the enigmatic disposition of the tissues. Birds and insects can present gorgeous colors and otherworldly effects of light, surreal forms, and an incredible blending of functionality, charm and visual appeal. By that, I don't refer only to the most extravagant life forms, but even the simplest ones. My drive to them comes oftentimes exactly from the fact that even the most ordinary plant or animal can be utterly enticing when we pay it close attention. 

When it comes to the decision on what I'll portray next, I'd say that it feels like this is life's decision, more than mine. Perhaps it's derived from my interaction with the organism, and what it triggers within me at a soul's level. Maybe it's a serendipitous encounter, which pulls me with such a strong power that it becomes almost unavoidable to portray it. There is also an intense curiosity mixed with an exhilarating anticipation as to how the result can show up on the paper, the canvas, or the board. Even the technique I'll employ is decided that same way; I mean, in a sense it's spontaneous. It can be obvious that I need to value the colors, so I'll go with colored pencils or acrylics, or maybe I want to emphasize the light, shape and texture, then I can go with graphite or pen and ink. In short, it's all very intuitive.

Your illustrations capture an incredible level of botanical and anatomical detail. What kinds of research and observation go into understanding your subject before you begin drawing?

I guess most of my first-glance understanding is provided by years of research in biological sciences; hence, my first visual take on it is quite well informed already. But whenever I deal with a subject that is more "alien" and puzzling, be it a plant or an animal, the most essential rule of scientific drawing I apply is having a full understanding of the origin of structures.  Then I closely scrutinize the fine arrangement of such structures and also how and where they end. When a subject is more challenging, I only start to draw it after I get a full understanding of every element that I can visually distinguish (taking into account the method described above).

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Alstroemeria stramonia – graphite and white colored pencil on toned paper (flower made in acrylics, both images digitally blended)

Pabstia jugosa – graphite

Could you walk us through your creative process, from researching a subject and developing an initial sketch to completing the final illustration?

When a subject catches my interest and I feel driven to portray it, I immediately start looking at it from every angle, like when I search for the perfect picture, in a process that could last for one hour or more. Usually, I close one eye to simulate how it'll play out in two dimensions (since drawings suppress depth). I rarely do initial sketches, and feel the need to do them only when I'll compose different elements into the same frame. But even in such a case, it's quite common that I simply trust the process, starting with one element, having some intuitive clues as to where the other elements will be; then I hope everything goes well and I can fit everything into the picture. 

My process can vary a lot depending on the one or many subjects that I'll represent, but I do like to start with one element, and then whenever I need to add new items to a picture, be they different organisms, different structures, or details of the same organism, I trace the next element on tracing paper and slide it over the frame, looking for the best place where they fit into it. Yet when I compose a classical botanical or zoological scientific plate, this process is more thoughtful and not so intuitive. I start with refined graphite drawings, then I make magnified and reduced copies of these drawings to cut them out and freely play with the several possibilities of composition. An example of this process can be seen in the video at this link -
https://youtu.be/KECx7_oFWUw?si=TYiQXQHHCK5ckf5S

Your illustrations are remarkably detailed while still having a strong sense of light, color, and beauty.  How do you balance scientific accuracy with artistic composition and expression in your work?

I appreciate your kind words on my work. I don't think this balance consciously comes through, but it's a result of some aspects of my artistic process, as I describe next.  Scientific accuracy comes as a result of my obsession with representing exactly and precisely what I see. This applies not only to the form and posture of the organisms, but also to their color and texture, how the light is reflected or absorbed by them, and even how they behave when it comes to animals.

Expression shows up naturally as a result of my personal view and perception, my aesthetic sense, and the unique style every artist develops in their attempt to represent and "crystallize" all of that in the form of artistic illustration.  The artistic composition is also embedded in this process of expression, since it's quite intuitive and not very rational or cerebral, but only the result of a quest. My process of composition is more akin to an intuitive seeking, as I move the object around (or move myself around the object) in the search for the position that fully pleases my eyes. During this procedure, something seems to "click"when the best position (and/or composition) is found, and I feel a sort of "that's it!". So, being the choice intuitive, as a result of an expectation for that "click moment", that's what makes the composition become a natural component of a very personal artistic expression. To crown this whole method, the details aiming for scientific accuracy provide an ultimate appeal to the eyes of the viewers, inviting them to delve deeper and appreciate more thoroughly. 

You have also taught biological illustration through workshops and courses. What do you hope students gain from learning to observe and draw the natural world so closely?

First and foremost, I hope students get "infected with the virus" of appreciating the beauty and allure that's always around, even in the simplest life forms. Respect and conservation come from that, but also gratitude and fulfillment, which is an example of how art and nature can benefit our psyche and even our physiology. I also hope they can fully develop their artistic talents by paying attention to the details. That's because when you learn to focus on the minutiae of what you're drawing or painting, you also tend to cultivate a better and more meticulous understanding of the materials and techniques you employ. On top of that, this refinement ends up spreading towards our intrapersonal intelligence; hence, artists learn to better tackle their own internal issues, becoming more patient, resilient, and self-reliant. 

Last but not least, I aim for the students to become capable of self-teaching, i.e., I tend to teach in a way that helps students learn how to learn. I do that by showing the students what I do to scrutinize the techniques and how they work, which makes it easier to figure out how to solve or avoid technical issues.

Has spending so much time observing plants, animals, and their structures changed the way you personally see nature in your everyday life?

Yes, for sure. I had never thought about that. But now I try to recall how I saw the world before I started illustrating. What comes to mind is that my view is more whole now; I mean, when I contemplate any scene in nature, my heart and mind always have me obsessively imagining that I'm making art inspired by that view. Just imagining that I'm observing to illustrate is enough to make me delve deeper into the investigation, so my perception gets more profound, and I instantly become more rooted in the present. 

Thus I try to capture, with my mind's eye, the exact contrast and color of the sunlight and/or the blue sky reflected on a leaf or a toucan's beak, or the precise intense color the leaves or the beak acquire when pierced by that light. The same goes for a scenario illuminated by a cloudy sky, and the diffuse, dreamy light that reflects on the organisms. In other words, it seems I'm always aiming to represent not only the organisms or the natural scenarios, but, with equal importance, also the ineffable atmosphere that surrounds/embeds them.

I conclude that if before I would look at nature with a more relaxed and somewhat absentminded eye, after learning to illustrate, I became more attentive to the details, including the detail of the integrality and interdependency of what I see. At the beginning, this obsession was more full of tension and anxiety, always triggering a new project in my mind, which would keep me in permanent mental restlessness. But over time and experience, I dropped the need to represent all the beauty that I see (after all, it's an overwhelming amount of beauty) and learned to merely contemplate, in quiet bliss, only for the blessing of seeing. That doesn't mean I dropped every project, but only that I put them to work when the drive is irresistibly compelling.