All drawings by Katherine Brown-Wing

Holding her finely detailed illustration of a giraffe, Katherine Brown- Wing says, "Something captivates people when they're drawing natural objects -- it's meditative."

Brown-Wing ought to know -- she has worked as a professional illustrator for more than 10 years. And she has, for the past few years, been sharing her skills and knowledge with students in the Harvard Museum of Natural History's educational programs.

This spring, the Museum will offer courses in colored pencil illustration, illustrating beetles, scientific illustration, and botanical illustration. Ranging in length from three days to two months, these classes provide members of the community with an opportunity to learn techniques of illustration and practice drawing. The Museum's excellent collections of fossils, insects, and animal specimens serve as models.

Starting Feb. 22, students can explore color in "Colored Pencil Illustration."

"Colored pencil has increasingly been accepted as a valid illustrative medium. It's not just for kids anymore," explains Brown-Wing. Colored pencil allows students who are comfortable drawing to make the transition to color without having to mix paints.

Working from live plants and the glass flowers on display at the Botanical Museum, students will experiment with depicting the pattern, form, and light in their specimens. Getting the color right can be challenging, because a single flower may contain many shades of pink, orange, and yellow.

"We'll talk about mixing colors and about a little color theory so that students can gain confidence," says Brown- Wing.

Students can get up close and personal with beetles in the "Illustrating Beetles" workshop. Running from March 18 to March 20, the workshop offers students the chance to work intensively, in the end producing a finished illustration.

Iridescent, glowing, and ranging in color from turquoise to tortoise- shell brown, the beetles in the Museum's current beetle exhibit should provide plenty of inspiration. Using microscopes, workshop participants will closely examine the wee creatures to understand their anatomy. "We'll really look at beetles in three dimensions, producing models to aid our understanding of their structure," Brown-Wing says.

Starting March 30, students will learn to draw with scientific accuracy in the Museum's "Scientific Illustration" class. Students will draw mammals and birds, focusing on the Museum of Comparative Zoology's animal skull collection. The instructor, professional illustrator L. Laszlo Meszoly, has been associated with the Museum of Comparative Zoology for more than 30 years.

Meszoly brings a thorough and disciplined approach to the subject. With careful measurement, students sketch their subjects from several angles. That way, "they learn how one view relates to another and how the object fits into space," explains Meszoly. The result should be accurate drawings. "If you draw something very accurately, it ends up being beautiful," Meszoly says, "It doesn't have to be elaborate or exotic. It can be as simple as a single flower."

For those who can't get enough of illustration, there's more to come in May. Brown-Wing will teach a course, "Botanical Illustration," cosponsored by the Museum and the Arnold Arboretum. Using the live plants of the Arboretum and the glass flowers display, students will learn about plant taxonomy -- the science of classifying plants -- and effective illustration techniques.

The Museum of Natural History's illustration classes are open to anyone. Both Brown-Wing and Meszoly note that most of their students have some basic drawing skills, but they come from varied backgrounds. Classes contain biologists, teachers, gardeners, and professional artists.

Former students praise the diversity of the classes. "It's good to see how others approach things -- you really learn from the other students," says Mathilde Duffy, who studied with both Brown-Wing and Meszoly.

"I hope my students learn to really look at things," says Meszoly. "So many people have preconceived notions about what things look like and then, when they look closely, they're much more complex."

For information on registering for classes, contact the Public Programs Office of the Museum of Natural History at (617) 496-8204. Want to know more about the Museum? Visit the Website at http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/