Artist Interview: Tealin

Tealin's drawings have been some of my favorite things to admire on the internet since I've used the internet—there's always so much character in them. For the past few years, she has been blogging about The Worst Journey in the World, and it has been a delightful homage to a fascinating historical adventure (an adventure that rings true to Macro+Micro's theme of wonder of the natural world, incidentally).  Today we hear about Tealin's interests and process for Macro+Micro!

Tell us about why you chose the subject of your piece. Is it something you’re familiar with?

Yes – when I was little I wanted to be an ornithologist, and I've always thought birds' wings were one of the most beautiful things in the natural world, as well as a scientific marvel.

Explain a little about your process in creating this illustration.

The hard part was thinking of what I wanted to do.  As I cast my mind around art and science I remembered the Birds hall of the Natural History Museum in London where they still have museum cases from the 1890s, displaying anatomical structures of birds and feathers, and the cases are works of art in their own right.  Then it was just a matter of picking the species of bird, one with attractive and clearly-segmented wings, doing the requisite preliminary research, and getting the darn thing down on paper.

Are you reading anything currently? We’d love to hear about it! 

I just picked up Camus' L'Etranger from the library (in English, though, but the English title seems to vary by translation) which I missed reading in high school but has been recommended by a good friend. Usually, though, these days if I'm reading anything it's a book connected with the Terra Nova Expedition in some way, which is practically all I've read since 2010. So many books, no bus commute in which to read them ...

If you hadn’t chosen art as your career, what would you be doing?

Probably some sort of science, but one which wouldn't require much advanced math, which narrows the field rather. I had wanted to be a meteorologist once, and I am fascinated by particle physics, but: math. Maybe I'd have come back around to ornithology.

You were given a free science class, just for the heck of it. You even 

get to choose: Biology or Chemistry. Which would you pick?

It would probably have to be Biology because trying to balance chemical equations brings me to tears, fun as it would be to muck around in a lab.  I could muck around with a scalpel instead, I have faith in my hand-eye coordination.

You can follow Tealin's artwork, observations on her blog, Tumblr, and website!