- What is this image for?
The image is a depiction of a zebrafish embryo around five days post fertilization.
- Where is the image coming from? What do we know of its source? Its audience?
The image comes from a seminal developmental biology paper where the authors mutated zebrafish and then tried to identify which of these mutations are important to zebrafish development. It was part of a screen known as the Tübingen screen because it occurred in Tübingen, Germany. It was published in the highly reputable developmental biology journal “Development” in 1996. In paper titled “The identification of genes with unique and essential functions in the development of the zebrafish, Danio rerio.” The image was drawn by a lab technician in Tübingen, and is directed at a knowledgeable audience with some level of familiarity with zebrafish.
Materials & measurements
- Can we identify all the materials needed to make it?
This was a pencil drawing. It’s unclear to me if different pencils or blending tools were used, but I believe the effects can be achieved with a few pencils of varying thickness and graphite hardness.
- Are there multiple varieties of tools used to make it?
I assume that real zebrafish were used a reference for this image, so a microscope would have been necessary. The artist also likely moved the zebrafish around under the scope to draw it from multiple angles; Forceps and probing tools must have been used. Otherwise, I believe the iamge was created with pencil, paper, an eraser, and blending tools.
- What is the stability of a material over time?
Graphite is not permanent, and paper is easily damaged, so I’d argue the material is not very stable at all. The medium does permit capturing details more easily though.
Tools & equipment
- What tools are necessary?
Pencils, eraser, paper, some way to trace the image (iPad and desktop monitor), apple pen, programs necessary to digitally modify the image
- What are the best ways to replicate the effects of inaccessible tools?
The artist may have used a variety of pencils and blending tools. I believe I should be able to recreate the image by using a few different pencils and just applying different pressure. I can blend with my finger, and add highlights with a regular eraser.
- How do technological changes impact our interpretation/expectation of the image? (e.g., engraving, woodcut, silver chromate)
The sketched nature of the image, and the medium in which its drawn gives it a sort of impermanence. I will transfer this image to an iPad first, and the digital tracing will likely be a lot more rigid than the actual drawing. The iPad sketch’s rigidity may give the illusion that the drawing is wholly accurate, but that is untrue. The reality is that even the original image is hand drawn and must be lacking some level of detail. I must not let the changes of medium delude me into thinking that the strokes I make are absolute. Of course, the image itself was designed as a reference so some departure from the original may be permissible.
The image I selected is an image of a zebrafish embryo 5 days post fertilization. My PI emailed me this figure when I first started doing research, and we still use it in our lab as an imaging reference. It’s Fig 2c from a seminal developmental biology paper published in 1996 titled The identification of genes with unique and essential functions in the development of the zebrafish, Danio rerio. The image is a pencil drawing, and I expected my final drawing would be an enlarged version that utilized similar pencil drawing techniques. I chose this image because I was intrigued by discussions of sir Charles bell in the nervous system and the anatomy of expression: Sir Charles Bell’s anatomical watercolors. Sir Charles Bell advocated the importance of utility, and I felt that the image I selected would provide me the opportunity to explore how function influences the process of image construction. The process I used for reconstruction involved digitally isolating different aspects of the image and layering each aspect back on to a piece of printer paper to create a final product. I first created a detailed tracing using an iPad and made sure to capture as many of the hardlines as possible, while excluding texture and shading. Using PowerPoint, I scaled up my iPad tracing and used a large desktop monitor to transfer the iPad tracing to a piece of printer paper. Using the original image as my guide, I then reintroduced texture and shading to create a final product. I subsequently went through and labeled the image, shifting the labels to suit the organization of my reconstruction. My process was documented differently at each stage of the process. The iPad tracing permitted screen recording, while the transfer to paper was best captured in single images. The last phase of reconstruction, the reintroduction of details, was captured using a time-lapse and a pedestal made of textbooks. While this process facilitated a relatively accurate, and rapid, reconstruction of the original image, it is important to note that, like the original image, my reconstruction included an aspect of freehand drawing. This means that there are certainly some missing and/or subtly shifted details. Bearing in mind the functionality of this image, however, I believe that the slight adjustments to the drawing and its labels do not take away from its utility.
FIELD NOTE 1 OF 3
Date: 2/12/22
People Involved: just me
Location: Dining table in my childhood home
Reconstruction conditions:
I was sitting in the living room. The shrieks of my little brother, playing tag with my sister, filled the air. I played Bob Ross in my headphones to get into an artistic spirit
Time and duration of reconstruction:
8pm – 9pm; 1-hour iPad tracing
Equipment and tools used:
Ipad; apple pen; Goodnotes program, four different shades of (digital) red, screenshotted image of zebrafish embryo, screen recording app, lasso tool
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
since I was working with a digital image at this stage, the resolution of the picture was an important concern. I enlarged the picture as much as I could before screenshotting the image. When I zoomed in to begin tracing the image, I noticed a lot of pixilation. Because I was tracing on an iPad, I couldn’t produce any of the texture and pencil strokes on the original image. Regardless of the region I was drawing or the effect I was trying to achieve it felt like drawing on a smooth, characterless surface. I did not have to worry about tracing paper obscuring my view, however, and I had the luxury of copying and pasting my tracing to wherever I wanted it. The ability to zoom in very closely also allowed me to capture way more detail than I might have with my naked eye.
Prior knowledge that you have:
I work in a Zebrafish Lab, but I admittedly never spend much time looking at the embryos in this sort of detail. I often sort embryos though, and it bears mentioning that my PI’s favorite piece of advice is “a good embryo is a pretty embryo” which is very reminiscent of the discussion of aesthetics in this course. Of course, my PI typically means that I should avoid deformed embryos. But the fact remains that there is a certain element of balance and symmetry to a good embryo. When looking at embryos in real life there are almost always many others to which you can compare. A good embryo often also looks like many of the others in the dish which recalls our in-class discussions about normative judgement and the normative representation.
Reflection on your practice:
When I first looked through the contents of this assignment, I figured using an iPad might make my life easier. Namely, I expected that I would be able to recreate the drawing accurately since no tracing paper would obscure my view. As soon as I started tracing the image, I realized that despite the benefits provided by the iPad, it had a lot of limitations as well. I was recreating a zebrafish image from multiple angles, and for the first angle I tried to include as much detail as possible. I found that certain elements of the drawing I was trying to recreate could not be easily recreated using a stylus that permitted essentially only one type of stroke. Beyond that, I also found that the drawing that I was trying to recreate featured a lot of shading. The program that I was using permitted the use of various shades of color so I could capture some of the pencil shading. Even so, I couldn’t capture the level of shading in the actual drawing. After I finished tracing the first angle, I decided I would leave out the complex shading, and only trace hard lines. I will use these hard lines to transfer the image onto paper, and then on the paper I will try to recreate some of the pencil drawing techniques. I worried that some of the hard lines that I was drawing were sharper in my outlines than in the actual image which also effected the fidelity of my drawing. The more I reflected on the limitations of tracing on an iPad, the more I began to contemplate our discussions of mechanical objectivity; I began to realize that, despite the benefits of using the iPad, there were details I still couldn’t capture, and details I knew I would likely not be able to capture in the final product.
Photos/video documenting process:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/sfRu4T3M3GTbG7qh7
Questions that arise:
Will I be able to replicate some of the shaded details in the original drawing?
Do I need to capture the shading exactly? After all the original is also hand drawn so it isn’t like it’s an absolute reference either.
If I use the hard lines from my tracings, will I lose another layer of information and/or introduce information that isn’t there?
FIELD NOTE 2 OF 3
Date: 2/13/22
People Involved: Just me
Location: My childhood bedroom
Reconstruction conditions:
This reconstruction was done in absolute silence, behind the closed door of my bedroom. It was late so no one was awake to make noise. Halfway through my reconstruction I wondered why I didn’t do my tracings while listening to music. I didn’t want to remove the paper from the monitor screen because I felt I wouldn’t be able to realign it correctly. I finished my reconstruction incapable of scratching my itch for music.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
12:00 am-3:00 am; 3 hours
Equipment and tools used:
A large, excessively bright monitor; HDMI cable, iPad, PowerPoint (to resize my iPad tracing), A dull #2 pencil, an eraser
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
I laid a piece of printer paper on the monitor screen and my red outline lit through the piece of paper. Because it was late, and I had only the soft orange glow of my desk lamp, I remember the brightness of the monitor hurting my eyes. To transfer my iPad tracing onto the paper I held the paper on the monitor screen and used a dull pencil to lightly trace the image. I could not press the pencil on to the page too hard because I was worried, I would damage the monitor. I had to be way more careful at this stage in the reconstruction than I had to be when I was working on the iPad.
Prior knowledge that you have:
Again, I’ve handled a lot of zebrafish in my time at rice, so I typically can tell when something feels off or when an embryo doesn’t look like how its supposed to. During my tracings my gut feeling about where each stroke was supposed to go was useful for creating an accurate reconstruction without requiring every detail be recreated.
Reflection on your practice:
The hardest part of transferring my image from the iPad tracing to a sheet of paper, was finding a bright enough light source. I first tried to lay the paper on my iPad screen, but, at maximum brightness, many of the details of my iPad tracings, didn’t show up. Eventually I borrowed a monitor from my dad and set it to an unholy brightness setting. I then scaled up the image with PowerPoint. One thing I struggled with when I finally started tracing my image was keeping the paper in place. I stabilized it with one hand while I traced, but the paper constantly shifted. Several times I had to erase lines and realign the paper before continuing the tracing. Often, however, the paper shifted in subtle ways that I did not detect. This led to thickening of certain areas in the drawing, and sometimes I extended lines further than I should have. The first few times it happened I was concerned my drawings would be inaccurate, but it soon struck me that there were plenty of individual differences between zebrafish. In fact, the study that included this drawing used a single prototypical zebrafish as a reference and used it as the standard of comparison for many other fish. As I reflected on this, I was struck by how similar this was to historical practices in neuroimaging. Images of a handful of brains, deemed normal, prototypical, are used as the basis of comparison even though every “normal” brain is unique in its own right. Relying on my gut feeling, and hence my previous experiences with zebrafish, I allowed some strokes to vary within reason. After all the original drawing was used as a reference, and no one expects a zebrafish to look exactly like the drawing even if it was 100% accurate. From my previous field notes, I also knew that it would not be efficient to transfer every detail from my iPad tracing. That is, even my iPad tracing, which itself excluded certain elements of the original, was still far too detailed. I decided that I would transfer only guidelines and then introduce more detailed elements using graphite drawing techniques.
Photos/video documenting process:
Questions that arise:
Does the intended use of the image change the importance of faithful reconstruction? It seems that I used this logic to justify my slightly altered reconstruction.
Typically scaling up an image requires precise measurements and adjusting every stroke. For me it just entailed enlarging an image on a PowerPoint slide. Did this shortcut eliminate a valuable part of reconstruction and does allowing a program to handle rescaling unduly change the image? Does it even matter provided that the image still has utility?
FIELD NOTE 3 OF 3
Date: 2/14/22
People Involved: Just me
Location: My room in my apartment in Houston
Reconstruction conditions:
This reconstruction was done away from any possible distraction. I completed this reconstruction while listening to music. My iPad was perched above my hands on top of a tower of books, and I had to constantly make sure the page was on screen.
Time and duration of reconstruction:
4:30 pm – 7pm; 2.5 hours
Equipment and tools used:
iPad (to record time lapses), a tall stack of textbooks, 0.7 mm mechanical pencil, dull HB pencil, dull 8B pencil (softer lead, leaves darker lines), small eraser, laptop (to display original image), finger (to blend and create softer shading)
Subjective factors, e.g., how things smelled/looked/felt:
The AC wasn’t working too efficiently, so my room felt stuffy until the sun set. My hands got sweaty throughout the process, but that may have helped me create softer blending. I had to pay more attention to lighting to capture a good time-lapse. Because I was drawing free hand, I was a lot less tense throughout the process. My fingertip turned smooth as the graphite filled its grooves, and the edge of my palm darkened. I could apply different pressure with each type of pencil, and each had a unique feel on the paper whether that was soft and smooth or hard and grating.
Prior knowledge that you have:
I have prior experience drawing with graphite in High School. I took a lot of art classes, so I’d like to think I’m familiar with how certain strokes produce different effects. This also meant I had a few different pencils available, and I knew which pencils would give me the effects I was looking for.
Reflection on your practice:
This stage of the reconstruction was a lot more satisfying than previous stages. At this stage I wasn’t carefully trying to match up lines. Instead, this part was about introducing details, and texture to my reconstruction. In previous reconstructions I felt slightly removed from the process, and I only saw a coherent image at the end. In this stage, I looked at the image from afar every few minutes and compared it to the original image as I worked. Instead of copying strokes, I took in each region and considered which technique would best capture the texture of the original. I made mistakes throughout the process however, and I was grateful that I was using such a forgiving medium for my reconstruction. I was finally able to reintroduce details that I had initially excluded from my tracings. At this stage I realized that I had forgotten to leave room for the labels, and I was worried I’d have to start again. As I again reflected on the purpose of this image, I decided that the labels did not have to be identical. I compressed the labels and shifted certain labels around to better suit the reconstruction that I made. Though this logic was applied in a context the exact reality was inconsequential, I began to understand Sir Charles Bell’s logic more deeply. The image I recreated was a reference, and its utility defined what aspects of it I needed to preserve. It was important to be faithful to the original insofar as it was useful reference of zebrafish anatomy. No zebrafish is identical to another, and the reference that I recreated was best used as a guide not as a prototype. Though modifying the labels was inconsequential, I began to feel that modifications that facilitated this images utility were permissible if they would’ve made it a better resource.
Photos/video documenting process:
Questions that arise:
Is it necessary to be clear about the changes I made if I clarify that the image is a reference? Is this why Charles Bell’s watercolors were so controversial? Was he unclear about their purpose?
At what point does an image become pedagogical rather than realistic? Do any alterations immediately invalidate an image’s fidelity to life?
Will my PI view this as a valid reference? He has way more experience dealing with zebrafish. Will he see something missing from this reconstruction that I did not see?