Hi, I'm Claudia and I paint, draw, and write.
I love detailed scientific illustrations in water colour, abstract acrylic painting, and writing mermaid stories. If you'd like a commission or print, please let me know. I also contract as a writer, mermaid consultant, and illustrator for various Hollywood studios and book projects.
I dreamed up Mermaid Scientist while creating curriculum for my 501(c)(3) non profit, The Mermaid Islands Corporation, that I created back in 2010. The small school program taught coral reef ecology and basic literacy and numeracy for Tagbanua kids on a small island in the Philippines.
as it turns out, mermaids make science more fun
Science by day, watercolour by night
I studied biology and art studio at UC Santa Barbara and got a masters comparing Marine Protected Areas to Individual Habitat Quotas for sustainable fisheries management at the University of Rhode Island.
I enjoy working in both the science and art worlds. Currently I work as an Environmental Scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Marine Region — my scientific illustrations can be seen on the CDFW Marine Species Portal.
Counted, not guessed
A scientific illustration is a measurement as much as a picture. I work from a real specimen wherever I can get one — fin rays counted, spines counted, proportions taken with dividers before a brush touches paper. When the specimen is only available as a preserved sample the colour comes from field photographs and from people who have seen the animal alive.
That is the part that takes the time, and it is the part that makes the plate usable by a fisheries biologist as well as by a six-year-old.
Check out these super cool profile articles
Profiles, interviews and published scientific work.
SLO Life Magazine
Profile · Dec/Jan 2023
Journal Plus
Profile · April 2016
CDFW Marine Species Portal
Scientific illustrations, ongoing