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Monday, February 03, 2020
150,000 Botanical and Animal Illustrations Available for Free Download from Biodiversity Heritage Library
Colossal: Billed as the world’s largest open access digital archive dedicated to life on Earth, the Biodiversity Heritage Library is comprised of animal sketches, historical diagrams, botanical studies, and various scientific research collected from hundreds of thousands of journals and libraries around the globe.
I’ve been obsessed with botanical and scientific drawings for the longest time. There’s something so beautiful about the detailed illustrations (that have to be detailed for the further use by scientists in classification and research) that is intriguing to me as an artist. I find that I am someone who is heavily influenced by the natural world around me. When I’m walking outside, I notice the colors of a bird’s feathers or the pattern on the wings of a butterfly (it may sound silly, but I’m just naturally attentive to those things, I guess). Mother nature is the most incredible designer. Scrolling through this article and seeing not even a fraction of the illustrations available in this database gave me about a million design ideas, so quickly. Working on projects before where I wanted to research nature, I found myself resorting to Google Images, a terrible source for finding any information about a photo (what species of plant is this? where did it originate?). There’s something so wonderful about this digital archive that’s free to access, because it provides such informational illustrations to people from any discipline of life. It’s a one-stop-shop for research, which opens one up to examples of things from different cultures. I also love the fact that they have an instagram that highlights certain illustrations, which makes it a lot less daunting or overwhelming to get a little bit of insight!
This is so wonderful. Right when I think of this idea of free downloads of something interesting online I think of what I do with my free time or even just wasting time looking at random videos or articles online. This can be something new to look at for myself rather than scrolling through social media for hours. As a kid, I was always interested in small bugs and lizards that were in my front yard. I would have loved to have access to all these drawings of the different animals, insects, and plants to be able to observe their different colors, patterns, textures and shapes. I feel like this should be more known about or advertised in a way. This much free information is something really special, and to kids (who now all have phones and iPads anyways) can do their own research and look at different types of plant and animal species. It is just something to open up the world of creatures to anyone who has access to the internet.
I’ve always loved scientific botanical and animal illustrations ever since I was very little and would skim through my mom’s Golden Guide nature books during reading time. Especially as someone who finds plants and animals leagues more interesting than drawing people, this article really caught my eye. I went to the flickr page that the Biodiversity Heritage Library has containing the thousands of drawings and was immediately overwhelmed (and simultaneously awed) by the sheer variety/ volume. They have albums of things from the “Ancient Egypt Collection,” to multiple volumes of “North American Herpetology” (i love frogs), to various fossils and nearly anything in between. I also think the “Guide for di-it-yourself taxidermy” is pretty cool to read through (though I’m pretty sure I’ll never get into that kind of work). I’ve been in a pretty deep creative rut for a while now, but this is seriously inspiring me to pick up drawing again. I’m definitely saving this to use for reference later!
I (like the above respondents) have been fascinated by this type of scientific drawing since I was small. I think it was something about the artistry capturing exactness that so captivated me. Obviously, they are nice portraits aesthetically but I love the thought that someone took the time to detail (absolutely huge emphasis on “detail” here) the natural world down to sometimes even a molecular level. I am always amazed by what people throughout history wanted to document and how they have done so (in everything from cave art to those so heavily Instagrammed photos of peoples’ meals). It is also amazing that these have all been archived and made available to the public for free. I am certainly bookmarking this article and the Flickr link to use for artistic inspiration, house decoration, projects, etc.!
4 comments:
I’ve been obsessed with botanical and scientific drawings for the longest time. There’s something so beautiful about the detailed illustrations (that have to be detailed for the further use by scientists in classification and research) that is intriguing to me as an artist. I find that I am someone who is heavily influenced by the natural world around me. When I’m walking outside, I notice the colors of a bird’s feathers or the pattern on the wings of a butterfly (it may sound silly, but I’m just naturally attentive to those things, I guess). Mother nature is the most incredible designer. Scrolling through this article and seeing not even a fraction of the illustrations available in this database gave me about a million design ideas, so quickly. Working on projects before where I wanted to research nature, I found myself resorting to Google Images, a terrible source for finding any information about a photo (what species of plant is this? where did it originate?). There’s something so wonderful about this digital archive that’s free to access, because it provides such informational illustrations to people from any discipline of life. It’s a one-stop-shop for research, which opens one up to examples of things from different cultures. I also love the fact that they have an instagram that highlights certain illustrations, which makes it a lot less daunting or overwhelming to get a little bit of insight!
This is so wonderful. Right when I think of this idea of free downloads of something interesting online I think of what I do with my free time or even just wasting time looking at random videos or articles online. This can be something new to look at for myself rather than scrolling through social media for hours. As a kid, I was always interested in small bugs and lizards that were in my front yard. I would have loved to have access to all these drawings of the different animals, insects, and plants to be able to observe their different colors, patterns, textures and shapes. I feel like this should be more known about or advertised in a way. This much free information is something really special, and to kids (who now all have phones and iPads anyways) can do their own research and look at different types of plant and animal species. It is just something to open up the world of creatures to anyone who has access to the internet.
I’ve always loved scientific botanical and animal illustrations ever since I was very little and would skim through my mom’s Golden Guide nature books during reading time. Especially as someone who finds plants and animals leagues more interesting than drawing people, this article really caught my eye. I went to the flickr page that the Biodiversity Heritage Library has containing the thousands of drawings and was immediately overwhelmed (and simultaneously awed) by the sheer variety/ volume. They have albums of things from the “Ancient Egypt Collection,” to multiple volumes of “North American Herpetology” (i love frogs), to various fossils and nearly anything in between. I also think the “Guide for di-it-yourself taxidermy” is pretty cool to read through (though I’m pretty sure I’ll never get into that kind of work). I’ve been in a pretty deep creative rut for a while now, but this is seriously inspiring me to pick up drawing again. I’m definitely saving this to use for reference later!
I (like the above respondents) have been fascinated by this type of scientific drawing since I was small. I think it was something about the artistry capturing exactness that so captivated me. Obviously, they are nice portraits aesthetically but I love the thought that someone took the time to detail (absolutely huge emphasis on “detail” here) the natural world down to sometimes even a molecular level. I am always amazed by what people throughout history wanted to document and how they have done so (in everything from cave art to those so heavily Instagrammed photos of peoples’ meals). It is also amazing that these have all been archived and made available to the public for free. I am certainly bookmarking this article and the Flickr link to use for artistic inspiration, house decoration, projects, etc.!
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