The scientific illustrator on his love for rockfish and why drawings still matter in the digital age.

While Amadeo Bachar was working toward his bachelor’s degree in marine biology at UC Santa Cruz, he stumbled across the scientific illustration program there and realized there was a way he could merge his two loves, marine science and art. Illustrating creatures, he says, actually helped him understand the science better. He then enrolled in UCSC’s scientific illustration program, which has since moved to CSU Monterey Bay, and now teaches there.

In addition to creating fine art, mostly of fish, Bachar also keeps up a busy freelance schedule. He painted more than 100 saltwater fish (plus a dozen invertebrates) for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fishing guide, and his work has appeared in such publications as Scientific American and National Geographic.

The 39-year-old illustrator spoke with the Weekly from his La Selva Beach home just before heading to San Clemente Island off the San Diego coast for a long weekend of fishing and diving.

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Weekly: When I think of scientific illustration, Audubon birds come to mind. Do we still need illustrators in a high-tech era with good-quality cameras and underwater cameras?

Bachar: It seems like that on the surface. Audubon was famous for doing a reference of a bird that is now really easy to go out and photograph.

Now with our level of [technological] ability, sometimes we know there are things there, but we can’t visualize them. Maybe this particular nanoparticle exists, but there’s no imagery for it. In the cutting edges of science, we don’t necessarily need someone to illustrate birds, but we do need scientific illustrators to go out there and illustrate those things that are so small and on the edge of what people are studying.

Many illustrators are still doing birds and bird identification books, things like that, and they’re definitely still relevant.

What’s your preferred subject matter to illustrate?

Definitely fish or the marine environment. My freelance gigs range from nanoparticles to a project now where I’m doing cross-sections of the brain. To pay the bills, you’ve got to use those skills.

Any interesting cutting-edge projects you’ve worked on?

The coolest thing I’m working on right now is a group at UC San Diego that works on nanoparticles. The lab builds really small capsules that can carry medicine into the body, and the medicine can be released by a harmless laser into a particular part of the body. The applications for that in the medical world are amazing; you can really focus treatment.

How much science do you have to know to effectively illustrate scientific concepts?

You’ve got to get into a little bit as far as understanding the concept. With a marine biology degree, it’s amazing how much you can understand in a biochemistry kind of world.

A lot of times, these illustrations are for other scientists, but they’re also for investors and other demographics that don’t understand the science very well. It’s almost beneficial to have someonenot involved with it illustrate it visually. We don’t try to complicate it too much. That’s important, to be able to reduce it to something more accessible.

Do you paint based on photographs?

If it’s a fish identification, I go out and try to catch one, or talk to someone who has. I also spearfish, which is one of the ways I harvest references for myself.

People don’t think fish change color, but they have the ability to change color a bunch.

When you’re doing [a guide] on whether a fish is legal to keep or not, you need to represent the fish as it looks when it comes right out of the water.

It seems like the public doesn’t get excited about rockfish and the like. Whales and dolphins are much sexier.

It’s the visibility factor. Birds are there right on the rocks, whales are spouting right offshore, otters are in the kelp. Everyone has the ability to see those things with the naked eye. Even with scuba, the visibility is not so good. The colors underwater are muted, because the light doesn’t penetrate that far.

You sell T-shirts and trucker hats on your website. Is there really a market for lingcod T-shirts?

Fishermen love them. It’s more just me having fun with something. I like to do it for my friends and me, as another way to share my art with people.