Gymnothorax mordax, signed C. makeyev
Illustration for the State of California
I paint the species plates for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Marine Species Portal, the reference the state publishes for its managed fisheries. 30 of the plates there are mine.
These are working documents rather than decoration. Each one is drawn to a specimen so that a fisheries biologist, a port sampler and a curious ten-year-old can all identify the same animal from the same picture.
counted, measured, then painted
Fishes (16)
Invertebrates (11)
Algae and seagrasses (3)
How this collection was assembled
The Marine Species Portal credits six illustrators together and does not say which plate belongs to whom. Authorship here was established the only way it can be — by reading the signature on each of the portal's 149 plates. Mine are signed C. makeyev, or Claudia Makeyev in full on the later fisheries plates.
Every other detail on these pages — scientific name, region, fishery, gear, management status — is CDFW's own data. The illustrations were made for the Department, and each plate links back to its official page on the portal.