Meet our natural history artist!

Meet Dr Lindsay Gutteridge, our supremely talented natural history artist! Lindsay will be painting every species of Chondrichthyan fish for the Chondrichthyan Tree of Life Project. There are more than 1200 of them! This will be the first time in over 100 years that a vertebrate class has been painted in its entirety.

This will be Lindsay’s debut large-scale illustration project. She uses a digital tablet to create taxonomically accurate sketches of each specimen, and then transfers the sketch to watercolor paper, where she paints the final image using an acrylic medium. As an artist, Lindsay draws influence from other natural history artists such as Roger Swainston, John Gould, John William Lewin, Christopher Pope and George Coates. In addition to being a skilled artist, Lindsay is also a shark scientist. She's a published taxonomist and has expertise in shark morphology as well as fisheries science. She's therefore dedicated to ensuring that every illustration is a biologically accurate representation of the species, making her the perfect person to undertake this epic task. Lindsay says that her artistic philosophy is of technical vividness. She has respect for each animal that she paints, and endeavours to represent each individual with accuracy, integrity, and a vivid life force. She's passionate about documenting natural history, as many of the species that she paints may not exist in the near future. She aims to inspire a sense of wonder about the natural world through her paintings and, in doing so, motivate people to value and conserve it.

Lindsay has painted about 900 of the 1200 described species, so far. The funds generated as a result of this campaign will enable us to complete the remaining images and to curate and preserve the entire collection online for the world to enjoy, for many years to come. 

Here is a sneak peek at Lindsay's process:

Follow Lindsay on this journey on Facebook and, as always, you should check back to our website often to view the newly completed illustrations as they become available!

 

Here are some electric rays, as an example of her beautiful work.