I frequently receive requests asking about the techniques used in colored pencil illustration. Some are described in the video, others can be inferred. These are mostly the result of trial and error over many years, but by no means represent the only methods of drawing with colored pencil. For scientific illustrators, science represents as important a part of the artwork as the technique itself.
We collected this particular specimen of trout on April 16th, 2007 after a short day hike into Arroyo Santa Rosa in the headwaters of the Rio Culiacan watershed in extreme southern Chihuahua. The Culiacan is one of many river systems that dissect the Pacific slope of the Sierra Madre in Mexico, and is one of three major watersheds to hold native Mexican golden trout. Rio Sinaloa and Rio Fuerte are the others, though I suspect as do other researchers that the Mexican golden trout might eventually be split into 2 or more species. The Culiacan, Sinaloa, and Fuerte headwaters interdigitate just east of Guadalupe y Calvo, and it's but a short distance over the divides to visit all three. In fact, we were able to collect trout from both the Culiacan and Sinaloa in one (albeit long) day.
The video is mostly comprised of about 300 individual scans of the drawing over about 45 - 50 hours of drawing. In effect it is an "animation" of the process produced with imovie. The "animated" portion runs about 10 images per second, though some individual frames are lengthened to allow the viewer to read text comments about the illustration process.
The beautiful and tenderly haunting music for the video, "Sombra de la Aparique" (Shadow of the Trout) is a composition by flutist Ann Lindquist (Mukilteo, WA), performed in collaboration with Linda Khandro and Shiho Kurauchi, hence the group name ShAnLi. Ann was moved to write the piece after hearing about the plight of the Conchos trout, a native trout on the precipice of extinction in the mountains of northern Chihuahua. The indigenous Raramuri (Tarahumaran to some) call the trout "aparique" in their native language.
Carp On! Episode 4 - Redneck Fly Fishin'.
Carpucopia -- Film short with Joe Tomelleri about a great day fly fishing for carp.
Carpocalypse Now -- Movie trailer for an apocryphal movie about a trout angler who goes rogue and discovers the virtues of fly fishing for carp.
Carp On! - Fly fisherman extraordinaire Joe Ferber wrests a big carp from Tomahawk Creek on a fly.
Carp On! Episode 2 Flyfisher Joe Ferber and illustrator Joe Tomelleri have a fly fishing contest for biggest carp.
Carp On! Episode 3 Joe Ferber and friends flyfish "The Oxbow" and discover some big crankin' carp