Seeing the World as both an Artist & Scientist: Medical Illustrator & Scientific Illustrator
If you are here to learn about the career of medical illustration, please visit my “medical Illustrator” page,
Professional Reasons for Writing and Posting my Work Here
About the Medical Illustrator. Medimagery – Medical Illustrator in the Chicago Area
With a Master’s of Science degree in Biomedical Visualization from the University of Toronto, she is bound to amaze you with wildly colorful, graphically outrageous images and an interesting insight into her world. Simply combine anatomy, physiology, pathology, embryology, histology, with design, airbrush, carbon dust, pen and ink and there you’ll have it; the beauty and wonder found in the human body as seen and expressed by a master illustrator. Collaborating with scientists, physicians, and other specialists, medical illustrators serve as visual translators of complex technical information to support education, medical and bio-scientific research, patient care and education, public relations and marketing objectives.
Laura did her masters research on interactivity in computer design and experimenting with the small world being offered by a computer interface. Laura explains, ?It was like science itself, in a nutshell. I wanted to be creating small worlds where you were able to learn how things worked.?
If you review Laura’s website, you’ll notice she states that all of her work is done by hand. Once again, having been trained in traditional art, she always begins with a hand-sketch. ?Bringing the work (sketch) to the computer is a useful step in the process, but I do this only when I feel I have captured the essential movements and curves on paper that are to be the underlying focus in the final piece.? Every project that Laura creates is custom done. In the inception of each one she questions, ?What does this individual piece have to say to its audience?? Only then can she truly begin to develop the perfect concept for her final piece.
What is the most difficult question to ask such a complex artist? What project are you the most proud of and why? Laura replies, ?As an artist, I am in search of a balance between the chaos and rich excess of information being offered in the surgical scene and simple educational objectives about that particular procedure. There is a particular series of surgical illustrations which gave me insight about this balance. It had been a goal of mine to render the surgical scene in a way as if the surgeon were operating in a clean field. It was my job to clear away what a photograph could not. But it occurred to me as I was beginning to draw the series that perhaps I was avoiding something beautiful about the nature of surgery, to avoid the dissolution. During a surgical procedure, the tissues become a little swollen, and there is some bleeding, and this is all understood as a way of adapting the body for a healthier state of being when the surgical procedure is done. But it seems like a contradiction: destruction first before healing. We open the body, aware of this small loss, in favor of a greater gain. So I decided to render this dissolution in my surgical series. The results worked in a way that seemed very natural to me, compared to what my cleaner renderings had been as in previous work. This lesson made this project very special.?
Profile Professional Medical Illustrator: CV & Career Background
Experience
Owner | Medimagery, Laura Maaske LLC
September 1997 – Present
I offer digital design & illustration, working in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver, among many applications. And I also work in traditional watercolor, wash, carbon dust, and pencil.
Staff Medical Writer | MedMonthly Magazine
September 2012 ? Present (1 year 1 month)
Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Area
Medical technology journalist and illustrator, writing about new apps and tablet technology.
Volunteer | International Museum of Surgical Science
Chicago, IL. September 2013
Seeking a relationship to the Chicago community, I have begun volunteering for the museum.
Education
University of Toronto
M.Sc.BMC., Master of Science in Biomedical Communications, 1993 ? 1997
Toronto School of Art
Degree Student, Fine Art, 1992 ? 1993
University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.S., Zoology, 1989 – 1992
Honors & Awards
1998. Illustrations rendered for attorney Lubin & Meyer helped produce a 10.9 Million judgment. http://www.lubinandmeyer.com/cases/news_award.html.
May 1997. Keith L. Moore Award, Honorable Mention. Awarded for displaying outstanding didactic qualities, scientific insight, and artistic excellence in biomedical communications. Division of Biomedical Communications, University of Toronto.
February 1997. Vesalius Trust Grant. Awarded for excellent research in Biomedical Communications by the Association of Medical Illustrators.
May 1995, 1996. Mary L. Cassidy Scholarship. Awarded to research projects that contribute to the medical community. University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine.
May 1989. Grogan Science Scholarship for outstanding student considering a career in science. Rufus King High School, Milwaukee, WI
Laura Maaske, MSc.BMC. Medical Illustrator
Medical Animator
Health App Developer
Biomedical Visualizer
Hi Laura,
Gorgeous work! I’ve sent your link to some friends who are in medicine and they are thoroughly inspired. I’m writing a basic science course for teaching up-coming masseurs, naturopaths, etc, and wonder if it’s possible to use one of your lovely spiral heart drawings to show them what it’s like? It would of course go with the link to your site.
best regards from Australia,
Dianne
Dianne, thank you and certainly. Please send an email to me: Laura at medimagery dot com.
Your work is astounding — like you shrink yourself down & walk around INSIDE a body – and your powers of observation are remarkable. You have talent (and patience) I can only dream of and imagine! Love your blog.
xx,
mgh
(Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
– ADD Coach Training Field founder;
Madelyn, it is kind of you to say this. I feel a deep drive to carry over my observations, wanting to see the world as a scientist and observer, into the subjective world of an artist, pulling from the heart and emotions. I do not always find the line between these two ways of seeing easy. At times, there is no line at all. Other times, it seems impossible to call one thing a “truth” both in a scientific light and an artistic one. You will find here some very technical posts, and others more artistic. I guess what matters most, in the end, is simply the search itself to see in both ways. Thank you again!
Science, truth and “art” seem to be slowly merging anyway (lol, like science hasn’t always been art 🙂 )
xx,
mgh