I attended the fledgeling natural science illustration graduate course at UC Santa Cruz way back in 1992. It was one of very few in the country and it continues to be a highly successful & sought after program. It was a crash course in illustration technique, tradition and conventions as applied to a myriad of science based studies of the natural world. We had access to the Monterey Bay Aquarium as well as the scenic rolling hills and redwood forests around Santa Cruz. It led to some illustration work for Scripps and a glimpse into the world of oceanography. Field sketching was one of my favorite subjects within the program and I'm looking forward to sharing what I learned in the PAL sketch-journal workshop coming up in April.