As with illustrating any other organism, creating a biomedical illustration requires a detailed study of anatomical structures. But the beauty of working with the human body is that it also allows us to better understand and know ourselves.

The observations of a real brain preserved by plastination, were essential to understand the the structures, proportions, volumes and textures that caracterise this organ. The spinal cord was studied thanks to a 3D model, and dissections recorded for educational and informational purposes

 Using all the information gathered previously, I created a simple line sketch that accurately captured the details.

 This was reviewed by the researcher, and once the necessary changes had been made to ensure scientific accuracy, I moved on to the next stage, where I created an ink illustration on a white background, which would serve as my light-and-shadow guide to achieve a realistic sense of depth in the final illustration.

For this work my stylistic reference the  ink illustrations of the famous Spanish physician and artist Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

Not only did we decide to use the same artistic medium as he did, but we also chose to give the paper that yellowed look that comes with age. This was a challenge in which I explored dyeing techniques and used a combination of watercolor and ink to create the final illustration, which is the actual size of a human brain and spinal cord.