Medical Art Placement
An Artistic Eye
This project was one that was very personal to me. Having always loved biology and been unsure of biology vs art as a career path, I arranged two medical illustration placements- one within Aneurin Bevan Health Board and the other with Cardiff & Vale University Health Board. I learnt so much and enjoyed developing my digital skills as a result. Scroll down to see more of this work.
The Kidney
Adult Target Audience
The brief was to create a poster outlining information about the kidney for the target audience of adults, showing the anatomical positioning of the kidneys alongside an internal cross-section and external view. The brief was set by the medical artist that I worked alongside at University Hospital of Wales who ensured that I complied with NHS publication requirements such as visuals that depict a generic person, ensuring that the information being received appeals to people of all cultures and abilities.
This piece demonstrates my competency with digital software as these pieces were created using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I applied my skills in observation, accuracy and realistic digital painting to create these images that I am proud of.
The Kidney
Child Target Audience
The second part of the kidney brief also required me to produce a child-friendly version of this information.
This required me to produce imagery with a simpler visual and verbal language, incorporating narrative and characterization to engage the younger audience.
This therefore demonstrates that I can apply myself to meet the requirements of the brief and ensure that the clients needs are met. This brief enabled me to develop my skills in illustrating for children- particularly in the area of character design, which I found successfully pushed myself outside of my comfort zone to extend my skill set and create an outcome that superseded my personal expectations. As a result, I am extremely proud of this piece.
Scoliosis
Adult Target Audience
The second brief set at University Hospital of Wales was to create a patient advice poster for adults explaining the effects of scoliosis.
I was required to illustrate the posterior normal spine (from the lumbar spine up to the cervical spine) in comparison to the curvature caused by the condition. In order to do this, I illustrated the scoliotic spine in situ as an internal view to demonstrate the effect it causes on the body shape and the placement of the ribs.
I further illustrated the magnified cross-section view of the vertebrae to emphasize the distortion and to experiment with painterly techniques such as painting bone marrow in a realistic fashion, which I found particularly enjoyable and successful.
My placement at Royal Gwent hospital tasked me to produce assets for use by the occupational therapy and orthopaedic departments. This challenged my use of digital software and application to real life briefs. This demonstrates my use of adobe software including Illustrator and Photoshop. The assets were created as a leaflet and poster.
