Monterey Bay: The Magazine of CSU Monterey Bay Spring/Summer 2014, Vol. VII, No. I | Page 18

year of classes and a 10-week internship. They learn to sketch
in the field and to design information graphics and interactive displays.
Complementing the skills-based courses are instruction in copyright, contract law and other real-world topics.
Students produce business cards and build portfolios while
learning how to pitch clients and publishers – since many of
them will work as freelancers.
“Because of the broad range of skills and their versatility
and flexibility, our graduates have quite an edge out there,”
Caudle said.
Applicants include art students and people with a background in science. That’s not an odd combination. Both art
and science are about close observation, Caudle said, and the
mix is beneficial for both groups.
“Artists look at things in a different way than scientists,”
Caudle said. “They look at color composition. That’s fabulous
for the science students.
“The learning, the training, a lot of it is the rich mix of
people in the program.”
Corlis Schneider, who earned a certificate from the program in 2011, combined interests in both science and art.
“When you’re younger, you don’t think there is a way to
reconcile a love for art and science,” she said. “So you grow
up focusing on science, like I did, or art.”
While earning a bachelor’s degree in marine biology
from UC Santa Cruz, she realized that her favorite classes
were the labs where students had to illustrate their specimens.
That led her to CSUMB’s program. “It was clearly the
right decision for me,” she said. She’s now a Los Angelesbased freelance illustrator.
Julie Naylor Selan, a 2011 graduate of the program, is
another L.A-based freelancer. She specializes in wildlife and
paleontological illustration in traditional and digital media.
“Growing up, my weekends were spent in aquariums,
museums, at the zoo or out on hikes,” she said. At 15, she was
certified as a scuba diver and “that opened up a whole new
world.” She, too, found her way to the science illustration
program. “It was life-changing for me.”
Kim shares the view. “The science illustration program
was one of the most important decisions of my life,” Kim
said. “Through the program, I was able to define what sort of
purpose art had for me.
“I learned new techniques, refined old ones and left the
program feeling very prepared,” she said. MB
More information: scienceillustration.org | ink-dwell.com
Watch video of Jane Kim talking about her inspiration for the
Migrating Mural series at csumb.edu/multimedia

“ hite-lipped peccary,” a hog-like animal native to
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Central and South America.

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