Scientific American

The Effects of Stress on the Body

This is a piece from 20 years ago, but I’m including it here because — and I am absolutely serious — I love sketches from authors and editors. I’m always struck by the purity, clarity, and simplicity of the sketches I receive. In fact, because of their directness, there are times I would want to see the actual sketches published in the articles. Scientific American contacted me about doing an illustrated graphic on the impact of stress on the body. The editor sent the article, along with a sketch from the scientist-author:

It’s altogether wonderful, but this note may be my favorite thing in the sketch:

(I’m glad they clarified this; I was planning to put the testes in the figure’s brain.)

Working from a sketch like this opens so many doors. It allows me to clearly focus on aesthetic intent and emotional communication. How do I convey “stress” in the illustration? “Stress” is the canvas of this illustration, the framework that will hold the specific content. To show the figure standing ramrod-straight and expressionless would be a disservice to what we are trying to get across. So I spent some time thinking about how to set up a pose that conveyed something emotional yet wouldn’t get in the way of the nuts-and-bolts information. With all of this in mind, I created a first draft that I sent to SciAm:

There was some concern from the editors about the spread legs. So I made her proper and also adjusted her left hand:

I made some tweaks to the lighting of the internal organs, and here is the final piece: