Gem and MinEral Identification Guide

I grew up rock collecting with my family, as my dad has had a lifetime love of geology. I have always been surrounded by rocks and have a love of biological, botanical, and general scientific illustration such as that found in textbooks or field guides. The style of this book was greatly inspired by this sort of imagery. The layout is based on field guides, and the use of color in the mineral and gem imagery was drawn from vintage natural sciences illustration styles. The watercolor style was used as it best captured how light interacts with stones of varying transparencies. This book was a test of research and accurate scientific design practices. It was necessary that the information in my book was as accurate as I, an artist and not a geologist, could make it. I think it is important not to sacrifice the accuracy or detail of scientific information when making art, so I worked to include the most accurate information that I had access to and could understand. I chose the natural and treated colors of gems as my topic because I think it is very interesting how we find ways to shape nature into what we want and what we find appealing. The natural shades of many stones are beautiful, but we want them treated to the same range of blue, green, red, and sparkling clear. As a whole the project was a test of representing natural imagery while investigating the way that humans shape nature to our liking.