My work has been featured in an article in Birding as well as the website for the American Birding Association! I was asked by Douglas Robinson, lead author of the article: Field Identification of Subspecies: When and how to report them in eBird, to create an infographic for the article.
The brief called for a guide addressed to a hypothetical birder who had just observed a Steller’s Jay. Steller’s Jays are widely distributed across western North America and have multiple plumage variations associated with subspecies level differences.
To create the images of the three Steller’s Jays showing the relevant plumage characteristics, I drew one head in Procreate and then copied it. I then adjusted the crest length and altered the plumage colors and field marks as needed.
The infographic was quite a bit more challenging as I needed to fit the decision tree into a nice vertical without leaving a lot of white space. After several sketches, I landed on something that I thought would work and — hooray!
The article was such a hit with eBird reviewers (the behind-the-scenes volunteers who sort through all the birder submissions to eBird) that the piece is now on the ABA website. As an illustrator, I am thrilled to contribute to this amazing organization and help birders understand birds and birding a little bit better.