This content was published: November 1, 2004. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Becky Slemmons – Medical Illustration Sketches
Rock Creek Helzer Gallery
November 2004
To describe a heart, begin like this
Becky Slemmons
After mentioning that I am a medical illustrator, more than once I have heard the response, “I didn’t know anyone actually did that.” I smile inwardly and wonder where they imagine the drawings come from, assuming we’ve all opened a health or medical text once in our lifetime. Maybe it went like this: and on the 8th day, the powers that be presented the world with all the medical illustrations that would ever be desired. Maybe not.
The reality is that through my teen years, I wanted to be a veterinarian or a people doc, but found myself spending all my free moments, as well as every lunch hour, in the art room at my high school. As I worked, my drawing teacher, Mr. Jack Walther, repeated to me “One day you are going to miss this.” When I heard of the profession of medical illustration, during a presentation made to our high school by a rep from an in-state art school, I knew I had found the answer to marrying my two interests. Most importantly, it did not feel like a compromise. I had come to realize that my interest in medicine stemmed from a fascination with anatomy. I was and am still enamored with the appearance of the things under our skin, the names of these structures —beings in themselves, really—and I am interested in understanding their bodily duties. It is a good thing I figured this out, because, as my husband, a kidney doctor, can vouch for, this is a very, very small part of being a doctor, but a very big part of being a medical illustrator.
I have chosen to show only sketches, and no finished illustrations, from a large collection of anatomical illustrations (171 total) that I completed for a series of patient education publications. While working on the project, I began each morning with a sketch, and ended each workday with a clean digitally rendered publish-ready illustration. Though the finished illustrations serve their purpose adequately, to me the sketches hold more life. In a way, more goes directly into the sketch. While sketching, I am figuring out what to include, often purposely drawing more than needed, deciding how to command viewer’s focus, trying to create a unique rendition without compromising accuracy, while noting and fixing my inaccuracies. I am remembering, from longs hours in the human anatomy gross dissection lab, how mushy or solid the structure felt, how heavy, how shiny-smooth or bumpy it was. When I am sketching, I am more or less imagining what it might feel like to be a pancreas, or a thumb extensor, or even a falciform ligament. And the fact that we go about our lives blindly, with all of this beauty just under our skin, not needing to think about what it’s doing there, never ceases to amaze me.
