ERIN'S HEART & SOUL

Here is my rework of the website design I am doing for my amiga Erin Stevens. Previously, this specific design was orange and green, but I think these colors work a little more to fit in with Erin's personality and style. I have yet to create any secondary pages because I am waiting for the ok from Erin so I don't waste ma time! Hope she likes what I've done so far.  The other images are the rollover states for the links. Looking at it now, I am going to change the text under the heart on the off state to green, like the other links. Then on rollover, the heart color will change to green and the text will turn white. Woop!

So I lied a little...

Below you will find my final versions of the medical icons for my most recent Advanced Graphic Design project. We had to choose three medical branches, and I, of course, chose Psychiatry as my last branch which certainly was freakin hard to represent. So my three branches were Ophthalmology, Nuclear Medicine and Psychiatry. While I was brainstorming, I figured I would call my last branch Neurology, because that's exactly what the icon looked like. However, I developed (I hope) a more representative icon for Psychiatry, although at one point I was ready to accept my current very Neurological-type icon.  By the way, we had to develop a color version of the icons as well.  We could use as much or as little color as we wanted, so I wanted to highlight the 'smaller' parts of the major structures that I created.

Frank Armitage Lecture coming up!

Frankie boy. Mr. Frank Armitage will be featured again this year, on October 22nd and 23rd, at the annual BVIS event The Frank Armitage Lecture. David Bolinsky, Medical Director and Partner for XVIVO, will be the guest lecturer. Site creation and design for the event was done by my fellow classmate Lindsey Pionek.

"The Birds"

A screen grab of a website design and creation that I am doing for a friend of mine, Ms. Erin Stevens. Simple and clean. We'll see how coding it goes!

Le babies

Presenting my first real-life edited photograph! (It's the little things in life...) I adjusted hue/saturation, shadow/highlight, applied a photo filter and performed other small minor manual alterations. Woop! The subject is one of the many succulents I have flanking my kitchen windows. They are called 'Hens and Chicks' and they are cute little fellows aren't they? If you look close at the red glass stone on the far upper-right, you can actually see me - my hands and head surrounding the big black camera lens. Very cool. Unintentional, but nice nonetheless.

I CON CREATE ICONS.

Our most recent project for advanced graphic design was to create icons for three branches of medicine. I started with a very flat, graphic style, but as I went on I really let my imagination take me where it wanted. The second idea I came up with is very 60's, and completely different from the other icons. For the last design, I wanted something bold and striking. So, below are the three very different styles I developed. If you prefer one, PLEASE let me know, because I have to pick one to finalize for the final hand in. (Click to enlarge in new window!)

Don't get saucy, I've got my Bovie.

This vector illustration was created for my Surgical Orientation class over the summer. As the title implies, this instrument is called a Bovie, and is used for cauterizing and cutting various tissues. This was done in Illustrator and didn't take too much time at all.

Scorpion-Cactus hybrid?

Another MAYA creation. What is it? I don't know, but it was fun to create!

Lymphedema

Another Advanced Imaging project...I chose to do an image of a woman with lymphedema, and show through transparency, her lymphatic system and the disconnect that is causing her to have lymphedema. Although still in progress, I'm happy with what I've got done already. (The lymphatic system is basically like the 'garbage men' of your body...it gets rid of your cellular waste through a system of channels in your body. When those connections between the channels are broken, the body has no way to get rid of those wastes so the cellular fluid builds up in the person's extremities. In most cases, people with lymphedema have had their lymph nodes removed due to cancer, or radiation therapy and in women, it is most prevalent in the arms after breast cancer surgery. The affected limb becomes swollen, heavy and is prone to infection. Read more about it here, on Wikipedia if you like).

BRANCHES. BRANCHES. Oh my...

Maya class. Create a complex branching network. Ok. Got it. How about a glowing metal pipe system? Cool? Ok, cool. (click to see a larger image)

Alright, so here is the last slide to my mitosis storyboard...nothing too serious, just showing the finishing of cytokinesis (the 2 cells actually dividing). Soon, hopefully by tomorrow, because that's when it's due, I will put up the final composed storyboard, with camera angles and top-down views. Woop!

You dirty scoundrel!

Advanced Graphic Design. Yup. Advanced. Nah...it's just the next (as in the only) graphic design class offered to us second years in BVIS. However, we have the same professor, a Mrs. Donna Hughes, who is one of the most instructive, efficient and passionate professors we have in BVIS. I love her. Anyways, our first assignment was to create any mode of advertising to alert the public of the H1N1 flu virus (a.k.a. the Swine Flu). Obviously, pigs were heavily utilized by many of us...and I am no exception. This would be an ad for the side of a bus. I wish Nathan, a fellow classmate, had a blog/portfolio up, because his billboard was FANTASTIC and I would link to it if I could! Mine is ok.

Wood.

So we had to do some artwork over the summer, just whatever you felt like doing...I went to the Morton Arboretum and was inspired to paint some outdoor scenes, so I did! This has some traditional watercolor underpainting (gasp!) and the rest was done in Photoshop. I wanted a more 'contemporary look' so I left most of the background white, putting in random leaves and such. I actually loved doing this painting because I had to explore to get photos to work off of. Also, Photoshop CS4 is pretty much the bomb, considering I never got too attached to CS3.

Big movement.

So after a long ass hiatus, I am returning to my blog. However, I think I will spare all of you and mostly post up art I am working on. Why? Why the hell not, that's what I say. So to celebrate, I will begin with a post of some storyboard images for an animation on mitosis that I will be creating in the coming month. Considering my class is so creative, I'm sure there will be some pretty amazing animations by the end of the semester. Anyways, study my storyboards and learn the wonderful process that is cell division.

My actual portfolio!

Here is it, check it out!

So I guess I'll just keep posting work I've done...

So exciting! A t-shirt design I won, for The Frank Armitage Lecture Series event we had at UIC hosted by our Biomedical Visualization program. I get a whole $20 as a prize-oh, wait scratch that-due to 2 winners, the prize got pushed down to $10....Rolling in the dough.

School is kicking my hiney!

So school is hard. Go figure. Anyways, here is my latest assignment, line-only drawing showing the pancreas/spleen/colon relative to the surface and deep anatomy-no shading or rendering. I actually like this one, the simple graphic style is new to me.

I do enjoy graphic design.

We had to develop a couple mock up web sites for any random website that we found disturbingly poorly designed. Although the website I drafted wasn't terrible, it certainly could use a face-lift. Here are my mock-up 'About' and 'Facial Prosthetic' pages.

Livers are gross! JK!

SO. Test number 2 out of the way-hard but I tried. I can't gauge how I think I did-I do however have a new drawing. I had to show an anomalous heart-it had an extra vein entering it from the liver. The emphasis was light on form, and although I apparently am shadow happy, I like the way it came out.

Crossing of the Anterior and Posterior Cruciate Ligament.

I <3 you!

I held a human heart and lungs in my hands today. The heart was surreal. The lungs, when squeezed between my fingertips, felt like bubble wrap because of the air still trapped in them.

My first graphic design project!

My first graphic design project requiring me to use any set of data and create an image to represent that data. I chose obesity....well just take a look and see! Click to enlarge!

I like your veins...

WOW. That test was nothing like what I, and basically everyone I talked to, thought it would be like. Wow. I wasn't expecting that at all.

However I did well so I'm happy. Hehe!

A word from the wise...

"Forget about grades . Most of you were in the top 5% of your undergraduate class or you wouldn’t be here. After the first quiz, half of you will be in the bottom half of this class. For some students this can be very traumatic. Let it go. Do the best you can, stay caught up and remember that you are not studying anatomy to get into med school. You’re already here - congratulations. You’re studying anatomy to learn the language of medicine and to care for patients. Later on you’ll have plenty of opportunities to pick up the things you miss or don’t fully understand here."

Anatomy test coming soon.

Shake what yo momma gave ya! My first drawing assignment.

Interesting!

Yo so!...
Apparently the new hip thing going on in my world are mini-med lectures. Mini-med lectures are lectures that are given at various colleges/universities that touch on a variety of topics related to science and medicine. For example, robots. Like, terminator 3-esque. Ok, not that advanced but still very cool nonetheless. I attended a mini-med lecture about a week ago on robot surgery and it has still stuck with me, enough to write about it here.

Let me go on. In going along with the worldy monopolies that we know and love, only one company in the world manufactures 'da Vinci Surgical Robotic Surgical System.' (The lowercase 'd' in 'da Vinci' is correct!) The surgeon sits at a computer-like hub station, a few feet from the patient and uses small handles to direct various robotic 'hands' in performing the surgery. The pros with such an extremely minimally invasive surgery ends up typically (TYPICALLY!) being the minimization of routine complications obtained from more classic open surgery such as recovery time, blood loss, lost surgery equipment (!) etc etc. There was actually a da Vinci system at the lecture for the public to use, and let me tell you it was saaaa-weet to sit there and pretend I was operating on a real human! Just kidding, it was in a lobby and we basically grabbed little rubber cones and played around with them. Actually, cool side note, the surgeon giving the lecture showed a video that a resident made when practicing her skills with the da Vinci robot hands by making an origami swan. Watch this thing, tis crazy. Ok so the video won't upload, so here it is if you want to watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9Bjs99A0k0

But if you don't want to waste one minute, the point of the story is that at the end, one thinks this origami she made had to be, the size of one's fist or something, but it ends up being half the size of a penny! Crazy-town! The robotic hands are that capable even though they are centimeters wide! Go da Vinci!

But I digress. The cool thing about mini-med lectures is the opportunity for med students, health students, the public, the laymen, you name it, to be exposed to the frontiers of science in tons of various topics. They are also very affordable; the lecture series I am currently signed up for at Loyola amounted to $40 for 8 lectures, with one's commitement to how many one attends completely voluntary, but I found that most lectures at other schools end up costing nothing. (What the heck Loyola?) The schedules of the lectures are typically held once a week, for a couple months span at convenient evening hours. Anyways, forgive my da Vinci propaganda, it was just very cool! Moving on...

For Medical Illustration students in particular, the knowledge and coverage given to such a wide range of topics ends up being priceless for helping to pin down, or just even hint at possible fields one would potentially like to end up being in. Being that medical illustration has so many wide applications, it typically is hard to hone in on an area of medicine that one can spend their life's work on. That's why the lectures end up being so fascinating and valuable. This week's lecture is titled, 'The Bionic Human,' so no doubt that will be interesting as hell...but the following lectures touch on more common topics such as Alzheimer's and Genetics, and end up informing the public on the most current research in the field. I figured I'd share this information and if you happen to google 'Mini-med lectures,' you can surely find something reasonably close and affordable for you!

In the end, it supplies a lot more interesting job possibilities then illustrating textbooks. Yuck.

That's right!

Da Vinci, 1492.

"I counsel you to not cumber yourself with words unless you are speaking to the blind. If however notwithstanding you wish to demonstrate in words to the ears rather then to the eyes of men, let your speech be of things of substance or natural things, and do not busy yourself in making enter in the ears things that have to do with the eyes, for in this you will be far surpassed by the work of the painter."

It is the visual.
For more Da Vinci drawings, I urge you to go here: http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/

I am honored...

I learned today that my female cadaver was 100 years old when she died from cardiac arrest, or some other cardiovascular problem.

100!

You go girl.

Just like the movies.

That's me on the left, by the way.

One of the most intense classes we as a class are required to take is Gross Anatomy.  That entails anatomy that is visible to the naked eye, no microscopes! no microbiology here!  This class therefore employs the use of cadavers to educate the Biomedical Visualization, Dental and Post-Baccalaureate students in the wonderful ways of the human body.  It is all very exciting. 

Now a little about these cadavers.  

1) All of the cadavers have donated their bodies to science (no strays, homeless, stolen or diseased people here!)  This was not always the case...Interesting side-note I read in Somethings Fierce and Fatal, by Joan Kahn, a book of creepy interesting tales.  

"Around the late 1800's, grave-robbing was a nation-wide horror.  Illinois, like many states, had no law against the stealing of bodies, although it had a statute against selling of corpses.  Under these conditions medical colleges were in a desperate fix, since they had to find cadavers for their classes to dissect.  There was only one thing to do, buy bodies from men who came to the back door at midnight with mysterious sacks which they exchanged for so much money down and no questions asked.  Ghouls, as the grave-robbers were called, had become the terror of rural communities, and friends and relatives of bereaved families patrolled cemeteries for nights after burials, shotguns in hand."

So that's good, no ghoulish sketchy exchanges.  All legit yo.

2) Your cadaver is either female or male, and they are given without preference.  "A number 1 on the tag means female.  A number 2 means male."  My table obtained a female.  The pro about this is that in my first lab dissection I had some mammary glands to work with, which was quite interesting to see.  

3)  Formaldehyde. "Formaldehyde-based solutions are used in embalming to disinfect and temporarily preserve human remains. It is the ability of formaldehyde to fix the tissue that produces the tell-tale firmness of flesh in an embalmed body. Whereas other heavier aldehydes produce a similar firming action none approaches the completeness of formaldehyde." 

It smells.  It sucks.  It makes you feel nauseous.  And it makes you hungry.  Yes, hungry.  Second year student comes up to me and says, "So were you starving after your first lab?"  I  say, "Yes, famished."  And she informs me that formaldehyde has the odd ability to make you hungry.

The chemical compound has that effect. Could be completely made up, but I've heard it from many, so eat something before you go in!  Catch 22 man...

3.  Latex gloves are required.  So are scalpels, obviously.  Both of which you must change about every 10-20 minutes....The blades obviously get dull quick, with the whole cutting dead skin and all, and the gloves make one's hands numb.  I walked out of my dissection lab, after 3 hours of dissecting the arm and forearm, and for 45 minutes afterwards my hands were tingly and my fingers numb.

4.  Bone boxes.  Boxes O' Bones.  At the beginning of our first lab, we were each, as a group, given a box full of human bones to study for tests/sketching assignments.  A human skellyton (excluding the skull and vertebrae) all for ourselves!  Excellent source of material EXCEPT for the fact that they are like, 50 years old, and one has no idea if the indentations and notches in the bones are natural, or just chips from being in a bone box with 15 other boney pieces, and lugged all over campus.  Still, sa-weet!

5.  Dissecting is awesome.  You stare at someone's armpit (axilla region) and all of a sudden 4 hours fly by.  Like when I paint.  No concept of time, and it makes you look at your body (and humans in general) in a new light.  Laying in bed the other day, I started visualizing where all my arteries, veins and muscles lie.  Feeling for my external occipital proturbance (the back of your skull) I felt like a scientist, a doctor, a medical illustrator... which could only mean good things...

And lastly, a terrible dissection misshapes that I thought would be nice to share.

1. "A little blob of cadaver juice splashed in my mouth last week when my labmate's chisel thwacked the wrong way. Note to self: close mouth when near cadaver.

Put me right off my supper, it did."