Author: drsuepillans

Turning Ocean Science into Art!

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So my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish went National this week thanks to an interview I recently did with the lovely Jessica Hinchcliffe of ABC Radio Brisbane — where I talked about my life as a marine scientist, artist and visual communicator. What a great time I had in this interview talking about how I use art to teach and communicate marine science as a graphic recorder, artist and as Dr Suzie Starfish! In this interview I felt as I do when I make my school visits, a bit like an ‘Ocean Rockstar’! I was fortunate enough that ABC News then shared my story nationally as a feature story and as a result I have received so much positive feedback and interest in my creative work. So I’m as happy as a clam!! Through amazing opportunities like this it is a great reminder that it’s important to do what you love — as I have turned something I love into something I live and I’m so grateful everyday. A BIG thank you to Jess and ABC Brisbane Radio for inviting me into the studio to talk about being drawn to the ocean! You can ‘sea’ and hear my ABC interview via the links below and on my website under Creative Education/STEM: https://drsuepillans.com/education/stem/ ‎

Digital interview: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/dr-sue-pillans-turns-ocean-science-into-art/8285876

Audio interview: https://soundcloud.com/612abcbrisbane/dr-suizie-starfish

You can also follow my creative journey @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Dr Suzie Starfish turns TWO!

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Two years ago today I created my creative business “Picture your ideas” with Dr Sue Pillans and  my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish – to share my marine art-science storytelling through imagination, inspiration, information and illustration. And what an adventure it has been drawing out ocean ideas and issues with so many different people and organisations both here in Australia and throughout the South-East Asia region. The aim of my visual storytelling, through sciart and scicomm, is to share the wonders of our underwater world with ocean optimism; as I believe if you understand and love something you are more likely to protect and save it.

I’m going to make a splash this year with some new and exciting creative collaborations, writing and illustrating my kids picture books and plans to create new classroom content to help make learning visual (by putting the ‘A’ in STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, ARTS, Mathematics). And I just can’t wait!! A BIG thank you to my family, friends and all of my supporters, here on our Blue Planet and in cyber space, who believe in my visual storytelling and my dreams. I followed my heART two years ago and have turned something I love into something I live and I’m so grateful for the people in my life and the great opportunities that come my way.

So dive in with Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and learn about the wonders of our underwater world through illustration and information and let’s “Picture your ideas“! You can also follow my creative marine adventures @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Picture your goals for 2017!

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Happy New Year!! I hope you have had a great start to the year. I thought I would start the new year, the year of Awesomeness, with an opportunity for you to “Picture your goals” for 2017, with ME!! I’m often asked many questions about how I do my sketchnoting and graphic recording with the usual comment being”…I love what you do but I can’t draw”. I believe if you can draw a line, then you can draw! Sketchnoting is a form of visual storytelling and it is more about drawing out your ideas than creating a piece of art and I would like to show you how! One of my 2017 goals is to be a part of more creative collaborations so I’m holding my first Drink & Draw MeetUp to help “Picture your goals” on the 24th January 2017 from 5:30pm in South Brisbane (details below). This will be an informal social MeetUp for anyone who is interested in “picturing their ideas” and meeting other people who want to use creative ways to communicate their stories. So RSVP as soon as you can so you don’t miss out and I look forward to helping you draw out your goals for 2017!

Drink & Draw – “Picture your goals“ (through sketchnoting)

  • When: Tuesday 24th January 2017 from 5:30pm
  • Where: The Charming Squire, 3/133 Grey Street, South Brisbane (near QPAC)
  • What to bring: pen, markers, paper (or iPad*) and your 2017 goals!
  • *Ipad users: my favourite free drawing app is Paper53
  • RSVP me: sue.pillans@internode.on.net or DM me @suepillans on Twitter & Instagram

You can see more of my visual storytelling through my Graphic Recording and follow my creative journey via my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

My 2016 in Pictures!

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In my final Blog post for the year I just wanted to reflect on what a great year 2016 was for me and my new creative business, “Picture your ideas“. My goal this year was quite a simple one, to do what I love and love what I do by picturing ideas with people, teams and organisations. I’m thrilled to say that not only did I achieve my goal but I found so much joy and happiness in new creative endeavours, collaborations and communities. A picture paints a thousand words and these photos certainly show my amazing journey this year, including swimming with whale sharks and hanging out at my favourite place, the sea! This is also a time to thank those who support me in all the creative things that I do (…you know who you are!) and for those out there who support small business. I’m super excited about the new creative collaborations I will be undertaking next year, some of which are very close to my heART, including writing and illustrating my kids picture books about the ocean. Stay tuned as YOU too will have the opportunity to draw out your ideas with me! So join me in 2017, The Year of AWESOMENESS, and “picture your ideas”!

Best fishes always, Sue

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You can also follow my creative journey as my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Picturing your ideas in 2016!

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I can’t believe its almost the end of the year and what a year 2016 has been for me “Picturing your ideas“!! I have thoroughly enjoyed drawing out the ideas, issues and information from a diverse group of people, teams, schools and organisations this year. My graphic recording has also taken me to some amazing and far away places starting in the Philippines, to Western Australia, across regional Queensland to Torres Strait and to my beloved hometown of Brisbane! A BIG thank you to all of my amazing clients and colleagues who were part of my visual journey this year, and for supporting small creative business! I just love putting people in the picture and it’s the people that make my job so enjoyable. And as you can see from all of the smiling faces, graphic recording certainly adds another element to group discussions and helps people to see the big picture. A special thank you to my family, friends and creative (scicomm) community who have continually supported me through my new creative journey. I am so very grateful and proud that I am turning something I love into something I live and I just can’t wait for the next chapter in my story! I have new and exciting creative collaborations planned for next year with 2017 being The Year of AWESOMENESS! So here I come 2017, ready to Picture your ideas!!

You can also follow my creative journey as my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Sea-ing the Science!

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I use visual storytelling to capture and convey people’s ideas, information and discussions and due to my devotion to the ocean a lot of my work this year has included helping people, teams and organisations to ‘sea’ the science — through visuals. I think science communication (or scicomm for short) is critical to the future of our Blue Planet as I believe if people fall in love with the oceans they might be more moved to look after and protect them. I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to good scicomm, keep it simple, tell a hopeful story and use pictures where you can. As picturing science is a very powerful way of communicating, I use a range of different visual storytelling approaches from drawings and paintings, maker spaces and creative science in schools to being actively involved in podcasts, Google Hangouts, interviews and social media. In all of my science communications, despite the topic, I always try to provide positive messages and ocean optimism as in my experience a good story is far more relatable and ‘contagious’ than a bad one. For example, my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) uses art and science storytelling to share the wonders of our underwater world using inspiration, imagination, illustration and information — and creates science smiles in schools!! Weblinks to my recent scicomm discussions across the globe with Dr Mike, Dr Karen(s) and Dr Paige can be viewed here:

Podcast: http://www.drmikeographer.co.uk/podcast/scicomm-episode-22-interview-sue-pillans/

Google Hangout (ACCELN): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDJTdtTlKgA

Interview: http://www.fromthelabbench.com/from-the-lab-bench-science-blog/2016/10/5/featuring-a-science-instagrammer-suepillans

You can also follow my creative journey as Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Science by the sea!

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I don’t know about you but when I went to school I didn’t get to measure, weigh and get up close and personal with one of the oldest and most graceful creatures of the sea, the green turtle!  But through the Ningaloo Outlook project, a strategic research partnership between CSIRO and BHP Billiton in Western Australia, we engage the local community in our science including the schools! Science students from Exmouth District High School were part of our turtle tagging school earlier this year and as you can see from the photos there were many smiling faces as they did turtle-science amongst the sand and by the sea! Now this is what I call ‘outdoor learning’ and ‘sea-ing’ science in action!! This is a great way of making STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fun, inspiring and engaging for our youth — as Education does not have to take place just in the classroom. As you can imagine we are now the envy of many outdoor classrooms around the world, so much so that we have just been featured by Outdoor Classroom Day, a global campaign celebrating outdoor play and learning! You can check us out on their website in the section entitled “…and the one we’re most jealous of!…”: https://outdoorclassroomday.com/resource/best-class-highlights-outdoor-classroom-day/

You can also follow my creative journey via my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/), @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

Drawing out social solutions!

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I was recently invited to graphically record the Network of Environmental Social Scientists (NESS) Forum on Environmental Conflict held at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane. The Forum brought together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners from Universities, research organisations and conservation groups to discuss three key themes 1. Energy 2. Biodiversity and 3. Climate Change. Understanding and solving environmental conflict is a complex issue as it is often highly emotive and political, so hearing about the experiences of such a group was extremely interesting. It was also extremely fast, full-on and fun (…on the pens that is), as I visually captured 10 presentations in four hours!! My role at such a Forum is to help draw out the major issues, key messages and common themes from the researchers and practitioners to create a visual story of their experiences and knowledge. I’m excited that the visual story I created will now help in further discussions across disciplines to help with social solutions to environmental conflict!

It is also very rewarding to see how my visual stories are used post-event as I have just received a request from a Social Sciences Institute in India to use my graphics to help teach their students about environmental conflict in a course on Population, Migration and Environmental Change! WOW! And these visuals are now part of the NESS website, where you can also download copies of the Forum presentations: https://envirosocialscience.org/2016/11/21/the-ness-2016-environmental-conflict-forum/ You can also follow my creative journey via my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

My Dream Job started with Lobsters!

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This week I revisited the place that started my new creative business, “Picture your ideas” with Dr Sue Pillans. About 18 months ago a friend and fellow female scientist, Dr Eva, asked me if I would be interested in combining my science and art to graphically record a meeting about the science of the Tropical Rock Lobster fishery in Torres Strait. I didn’t hesitate to say ‘yes!’ and travelled to the top of Australia with the CSIRO team to ‘draw out’ the science of the lobster fishery with indigenous fishers. This week I was delighted to return to beautiful Thursday Island to draw out the big picture of CSIRO’s latest science information session with the lobster fishers. What a beautiful part of the world and what a lovely community to work with…and I love lobsters! So it was a very special trip for me as it reminded me of a few important things which I sometimes forget whilst busily running my own creative business: I am lucky to be surrounded by so many great people that support me in my new creative journey; I am grateful for all the opportunities that come my way to “picture your ideas”; and I’m proud of myself for taking a chance and following my heart (and star) to turn something I love into something I live. So a BIG thank you to Dr Eva, all of my supporters and of course the Lobsters!!

You can follow my creative journey via my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.

My Blooming Sci-Art Story

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Once upon a time there was a little girl from regional Queensland who dreamed of being by the sea as she was drawn to the ocean. Fast forward 40 years (yes, that’s my age!) and my sci-art story finds me turning something I love into something I live! So how did I do this and what has science and art got to do with the oceans!? My story starts at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia, where I did my PhD in marine science and on weekends I started watercolour painting, of course of all things marine. My time at UQ also included my family as my Dad helped me with every field trip into the mud in the name of marine science and I also met and married my marine science buddy for life, my hubby Dr Rich. The two Dr Pillans’ then graduated with their PhDs in marine science on the same day at UQ, which was quite the event! Over the next 10 years whilst I held numerous different jobs from public policy to industry development and research management I always kept up my marine painting.

Then, 18 months ago I took the plunge and dived into a new career, running my own creative business “Picture your ideas” with Dr Sue Pillans, where I combine my skills as a marine ecologist, artist and strategist to provide a range of creative and visual services as a graphic recorder and creative scientist. My relationship with UQ continues to this day in my adjunct role as a Research Fellow. THEN, to my delight UQ commissioned me to paint scenes of this iconic establishment which I entitled “UQ in Bloom”. An honour to create these artworks as a proud alumni of UQ. So my story shows that art and science certainly complement each other and make it part of your life. As my sci-art hero Albert Einstein says, “Creativity is intelligence having fun“, and I’m certainly having fun with my blooming sci-art life! You can see more of my commissioned artworks here https://drsuepillans.com/artworks/ 

You can follow my creative journey as my alter ego Dr Suzie Starfish on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drsuziestarfish/) and @suepillans on Twitter and Instagram.