Ep 40: The Art of Science with Laura Canil - The Journey

We continue our discussion with Laura Canil to learn about her journey in becoming a scientific illustrator. Her earliest memories in science didn't exactly start in science–initially she wanted to be an inventor and then a painter. As she continued in her education, Laura started to also explore science communication. All of these interests remained in the back of her mind as she received her bachelors and masters in physics and materials science in Italy. As a graduate student in Berlin, completing her doctorate research on photovoltaic and photocells, Laura realized that she enjoyed the communications aspect of science a little bite more than the research. She would spend hours making just the right figures and animations to explain her research clearly. 

As she reached the end of her graduate school journey, Laura began to think critically about what comes next. She didn’t know at this point that scientific illustration was a potential choice for a fulfilling career. By chance, she contacted someone online who was already working in the field, and as she learned more and more about his career, it all just clicked. Laura knew this was the right path for her. After receiving her doctorate, she took a gap year to develop additional skills for professional illustration–powerpoint was just not going to cut it. And as she learned and grew in her art, the company CanilVisuals developed organically as a natural next step to get her professional career off the ground. 

When Laura looks back on her journey, she doesn’t recall one specific mentor who helped guide her along the way. Rather, she had tremendous support from her community–friends, Ph.D. supervisors, family, illustrators and other freelancers–encouraging her to reach for her goals. And when reflecting on the choices she has made, there isn’t anything she would do differently. “I am who I am because of the choices I’ve made,” explains Laura; that person is a brilliant scientist AND a talented artist.   

Tune into this episode to hear Laura share her perspectives on:

• How she transitioned from studying languages to physics to scientific illustration
• Exploring and learning more about different career options as a student
• Ways to combine different interests and skills into one career
• Working as a freelancer 
• Future plans for CanilVisuals 

  Reach out to Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-canil-8a203819b/

X (formerly Twitter): @laura_canil

More about CanilVisuals: https://www.canilvisuals.com/ 

Other Great Episodes:
Ep 21: Who Should Art Represent - The Journey
Ep 31:

Support the Show: WeLoveSciencePodcast.com

Reach out to Fatu:
www.linkedin.com/in/fatubm
Twitter: @thee_fatu_b
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com

Reach out to Shekerah:
www.linkedin.com/in/shekerah-primus
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com

Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic

Transcript

Intro  0:04  
Welcome back to We LoveScience podcast. This is the journey episode. Here, our guest star shares more about their discovery of science and how mentors and experiences shaped who they are today. To learn more about the work associated with this journey, please check out the previous episode.

Shekerah Primus  0:23  
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show, We Love Science. Today we've been talking to Dr. Laura Canil who is another science artist; very very cool. So your company Laura which is called Canil Visuals, is for creating just these really strikingly beautiful visual representations of scientific concepts, right. So, so they're like scientific works of art. So I really love how the two things come together. It's always so interesting. Right? So we're going to jump into the journey segments of our conversation. And this is where we talk about sort of your career journey and how you got here. And we like to start with your earliest memories involving science. So, did you have a science spark or any science wow moments growing up?

Laura Canil  1:31  
I mean, I think it kind of developed by growing up so I don't have like a specific moment where I was like, oh, now I'm gonna do science actually it changed a bit. So I do remember when I was a child, I wanted to become an inventor, like building up stuff. But then I changed and I wanted to be a painter. So like, I went through other random things like forest ranger or like completely unrelated.

I didn't really get to science until like, middle/high school I think. Because in high school, I actually studied languages. Not really science related. But during those years, I started to become more interesting, interested in like, science communication things in general. I liked a lot astronomy, or like, I was super fascinated by the universe and I would go to my volleyball training and then come back and look at the stars and try to learn all the formations.

Then, when I finished with high school I decided to shift from languages, whichever side, to more scientific topics, so I went for physics.

Shekerah Primus  2:54  
Kind of like the hard science, right.

Laura Canil  3:01  
Hard in the beginning; it was super exciting for me like to get to know these new things. I did both my bachelor and master at the same university in Italy and then after after, so at the end of the Master, I went to Amsterdam for an internship that I used for my master's thesis, but that was my first research experience basically. At that point, like it wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in research or what to do exactly, but I did like that experience. So I decided to continue also with a PhD. And I moved to Berlin and then did PhD for four years there. Mainly working with photovoltaics, solar cells, and physics, chemistry kind of as general topics. And so, during the PhD, science, I like liked doing the research part, but during the PhD, I realized that I liked more the communication part of it. I really spent a lot of time on my presentations or making figures for my papers looking like nice. I would spend hours trying to make some animation because for me, it also helped me understand better what I was doing or what other people around me were doing like to, to represent visually the topic. When I was towards, I think, like a bit over the half of the PhD, and I start to think what I want to do after, and I realized that didn't want to stay research or but I also didn't want to go away from science. And I didn't know that science illustration was a job. I had no idea it existed. I started to look in the internet mainly looking for science communication jobs, in general; finding what other people were doing. And after a while I found the website of another, of a scientific illustrator. And then I went I really read through the biography of this guy who actually is from Berlin as well. I had later on the chance to talk to him in person; that was very useful. And then reading the biography and what he's doing. I was like, oh, yeah, that's me. Like that's what I like to do and the same kind of interest in science but more from this visual and communication point of view. And then so I found out this was actually a possibility as a career. And so from that point on, I started to kind of focus on that as an idea for my future. Still valid to my PhD; its the sort of my main job was to do research and working for the PhD which takes most of the time, so I didn't have a lot of time to work on scientific illustration on the side, but I started to try to look into it a bit more, try to learn a bit of design software because I could use only PowerPoint at that time. 

You can do pretty cool things with PowerPoint, but to be professional you need a bit more than that. So I decided yeah, I started to learn a bit of Photoshop at first illustrator, blender for 3d, but really just a little bit when I had time. I did some figures and covers for myself for my papers for friend's papers, just to practice. Until yeah, when I finally finished with the PhD then I had the time to focus completely on this. So I decided to take at least a few months off and just focus on learning all the softwares practicing practices practices. Basically. I did that for a bit more than six months, I think. And then this was until the end of last year and the beginning of this year I officially started freelancing.

Shekerah Primus  7:26  
That is really exciting. You knew that you loved illustrating; you have that visual component of science communication, communicating your science in that way. And you were preparing for it right you went from PowerPoint to the more heavy duty software; but I'm curious, when did you actually decide like when was that moment you decided? I'm going to start my own company. I'm going to strike out as a freelancer and start doing science illustrations. 

What's the story of Canil Visuals?

Laura Canil  8:12  
It kind of went organically so the moment I saw that this career existed, I was like okay, I want to do it. I quickly found out that there is no really companies doing this. Or at least in Europe, especially; I think in the US you have more or so studios and things. And you can also work for journals as illustrators. From what I know in like in Europe is a bit less common and the I was looking into it the more the people that find doing this job, they were all freelancers. I was like okay, I mean, I tried to look also for if I would find job offers because yeah, especially for the beginning it's a bit more stable to have like an actual position in a company. But yeah, I couldn't really find some exactly these kinds of positions. So it just decided well, I mean, freelancing is also kind of cool. It gives you like a freedom to work when you want. This was something I always liked, and by then I only did kind of academic kind of career. So I was always a bit flexible in my timings of where to work and when. And so I liked continuing that; I thought for freelancing the match is good. So yeah, then I just prepare the midway. So here in Germany, you can get some support also for when you start something like this, like a startup company or like your own business. I applied for a grant to have the sort of support in the beginning and then I just register myself as a freelancer.

Shekerah Primus  9:55  
That's very cool. That was very brave. To just decide right out of grad school, I'm gonna become a freelancer.

I had more excitement over the scary part.

Laura Canil  10:14  
I don't know how long it will take before it works out and I can actually believe it; and it's still in the process, but it's doing well for now. There was time I was like so happy that I finally found something that is matching a lot of passions of me and between being a bit of the bridge between science and art, two things I really like; the motivation was pushing me through the fear

Shekerah Primus  10:52  
Fuel that fear right? Would it be, or use that fear to fuel you?

So have you had any mentors during your journey while you were figuring out all of this science and art bridging? Anyone you were looking up to, anyone who was like really supporting you and mentoring you?

Laura Canil  11:18  
Not specifically; I would say like, I don't have a specific person that really helped me or like also because in this case I didn't know personally anyone in this kind of field. So I got help from everybody so all my friends and my colleagues at work they were all super supportive and even like my advisor during the PhD gave me some time to try like to develop essential parts in my like, more or less free time, or anywhere that had less to do with the PhD project. Everybody was just like super supportive which is very grateful and motivational place. I just started to also ask a lot of questions to other illustrators online. I don't know them personally, but I contacted them, through like social media and everybody was very helpful and willing to answer my questions. I got a bit of a general support in general, both from friends and from other freelancers. And I guess that helps, in any case, like even without having one specific mentor.

Shekerah Primus  12:26  
Excellent. You had a just like a village of very supportive people around you.

So what advice would you give your younger self?

Laura Canil  12:39  
It's a difficult question. Because I'm, I'm a kind of person that kind of think I am who I am because of all the choices I made. Like I could, you know, keep to myself. Don't be scared, like push yourself out of your comfort zone and just go for what you like directly and try to do it and don't slow down because you're scared or something; which I mean it's probably still a suggestion I would give to myself but there's also, I don't know how my life would have been if I would have I don't know, push myself or if I would have moved abroad earlier for example, because that was a big step like a big change for me also, like almost so until the end of the university, close to where my family was in Italy and more; traveling that opened a lot of doors for me, so maybe I could have done that earlier. I don't know. But in the end I reached like I just tried to follow my like passions and what I felt was good for me and then I reached this point where I actually found something that I find really fulfilling. That's the important part for me.

Shekerah Primus  13:59  
I think that advice honestly, Laura like I would give myself that advice to. Like that's pretty universal right a lot of us we hold ourselves back. Because of fear of whatever right, fear of failure, fear of what people will say, people will think, or whatever making mistake not being perfect, right all kinds of things. So yeah, I think I think that's pretty often like myself you know. So, yeah, so looking back is there anything you would do differently?

Laura Canil  14:38  
No.

Obviously, in principle, if I would have learned to design software from before, it will be easier for me now because I'm trying to learn very fast things that people are starting from a long time and it's also like I didn't know before I wanted to do this so I didn't know I needed those tools, for example. So it's useful Yes, but.

Shekerah Primus  15:11  
'your journey and the learning journey that you went on, you know, learning this while doing your PhD that was really special for you. And you know, you don't know how it would have turned out if you had done it some other way. But this is the way that worked for you and you're here and I think I think it's always great to love your journey and appreciate your journey.

Laura Canil  15:33  
And I never regret it.

Shekerah Primus  15:41  
And yet, it's so hard to but wonderful. So when you visualize your successful self Laura, what does that picture look like?

Laura Canil  15:53  
I just see it as health actually having a good work life balance when I'm doing this kind of job, which I really love in a successful way. So having enough clients that I can like make a life out of it and also enjoy the things like like, free time and traveling and things so the price for me is as important as the price of working just all the time for as long as I love. I really love what I'm doing and that's also sometimes something I struggle with because I can never stop, like it's I like what I'm doing and then it's super late. I think it will be ideal to be happy. Completely lay in the future to have this balance where you can do your, you work enough to have the life you want. But also retire your private life and to relax, potentially, I mean, now I'm thinking about the future. It could also if everything works really well, continues like this, the business could also be expanded somehow to be creating like a studio. We have different, because I mean my background is physics, material science, chemistry. It's so cool to have a studio with some other expertise in biology or medicine, all the other fields. Because I work a bit with every field. It's always interesting and with a scientific background, you can always do more or less everything, like you understand what people tend to do, even if it's not your field. But it's easier when it is what you study, you can be more useful for the client when the topic you're illustrating is close to what you studied; with with a studio where you can have people with different expertise then you can really tackle all the science basically and reflect the best service.

Shekerah Primus  18:11  
Balance and happiness, expansion of Canil Visuals; I love it. I see it for you and I am rooting for you. Excellent. Thank you so much for sharing, Laura.

Fatu. Do you have any additional questions? 

Fatu Badiane Markey  18:29  
I do have one additional question. So Laura when you're getting started? Did you have to learn a lot of like the art side of it, you know, or have you always been kind of someone who likes to draw, someone who likes to you know like design, and so it came kind of like natural for you to transition into this. Does that make sense? 

Laura Canil  18:52  
Yeah. I've always had a bit of like a bit of an artistic sense, I will say like so. But I also never really studied it like and then of course I'm not insanely good at hand drawing.

For digital art you don't need to be perfect at hand drawing and hence, and hence, especially for 2D drawing. But for example for 3D it's a lot of modeling more similar to windows programming than to actually hand drawing. I have I mean it helps to have a good sense of like composition and light, the colors and these kind of things, I think for me is kind of natural, so that it helps but it would probably help with more so to do some like more specific course. But I never really did anything specifically artistic like except for what you do in normal school let's say. But on my free time sometimes I like to draw but it's also not something I did or I do really regularly just every now and then. 

Fatu Badiane Markey  20:08  
Okay great. I love that though. I was just like a natural you know, like artistic flair that you have. Definitely way better than me, all my stuff is just like. It's like illegible no one knows what it is. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. So for the last segment on our show, it is called Life Lights, where we talk about what brings you joy outside of your work Laura. So you know what kinds of hobbies or passion projects, that kind of thing, family friends, how do you relax. What brings you happiness you know and enjoyment to your life?

Laura Canil  20:54  
So there are like a few things. In general, what I love, nature so I really like to go for like a hike or like things like this. But I also like, so I like sports. In this moment, I'm playing rugby and that's like a big part of my life.

I found that this sport, like I started to play only in the last year after I moved to Germany. And it's really cool sport I think not only for the sport side but also for the community. Really so it's not only about doing some sport for me this is really about friendship and be like being together and like everybody is affected everything like you play of course you're competitive when you like, play a game or something but then after the game you're all together, having a beer partying; it's a great community. And it's also very good also for my personal growth. I think because I push my self confidence a lot; like it has to do with making decisions and go for it. Because otherwise someone's gonna run over you.

From the decision, I learn to be confident, and try to go through with it and that helps me also in my personal life. Something that it was bringing a lot to my life as well; it's a good stress release 

Fatu Badiane Markey  22:34  
I think like you have to be really tough to play rugby and that's a sport I'm a little bit afraid. Wonderful. 

Shekerah Primus  22:44  
I love the analogy.

Like you know, make a decision and go for it or someone's gonna run over you, right? That's a great analogy. For life even, right, make a decision. Go for it. You're

gonna get bulldozed over you gotta move, you gotta move.

Fatu Badiane Markey  23:05  
Can't just stay in one place. Excellent. Thank you again, Laura. You know, we really enjoyed speaking with you and learning about I feel like you know what, is just the start of, this is gonna be a phenomenal career for you and that you will be able to achieve all these amazing objectives that you have and you know, we'll be in Times Square we'll just see like, you gotta speak it into existence, you're gonna see that advertisement for Canil Visuals; it's gonna happen. So we're definitely going to following you know your journey and you know, just keep keep I guess an eye on on what you're up to next. And maybe sometime in the future you know, we'll follow up with you and see what the next phase of all this is like for you. But this is really, really fantastic. And we wish you the best. Literally when you're just starting your career. So there's like, I feel like the opportunities are endless, right, it can go anywhere. And I think that's something really, really exciting to look forward to.

Laura Canil  24:15  
Thank you it's always exciting to me. I'm excited to talk about it. Because I think it's also not very well known career path. I already met people that you didn't know about it and then they were like, oh really it's like so cool. I'll be even happy if it can inspire someone. It would be great.

Fatu Badiane Markey  24:40  
 Like, you're the second scientific illustrator and like scientific artists we have on the show with Shekerah and I like this is something where when we saw it, we see like, you know like visuals and things and we're like, people do this for a living like this is pretty cool. Finding you guys. It's so hard sometimes.

And I think we've also been really fortunate you know, we've had you on the show. Recently, last season we had Chidibere who is also a medical illustrator and also does amazing work. So I feel like the community also of just those who do like scientific art, scientific illustrations is also you know, just really productive like, you know, and you're starting to get your name out there and I think that is really going to have people start to pay more attention. You know, what, 

Laura Canil  25:39  
Also like researchers and scientists are realizing how important it is to have like a visual representation of what they do. For now even like this, there's a sort of community sense also in between illustrators, maybe because we're not that many. Like this is not a much about competition. People are just trying to be competitive and get your clients or whatever. Is enough for everybody at the moment and it's really cool, then I hope it grows more and it will be greater useful for everybody.

Fatu Badiane Markey  26:17  
 I like that. I like thinking of it that way. It's like there's more than enough for everybody, right? There's no reason to fight over this. It's like everyone's styles a little bit different. Everyone you know, is going to bring their own unique ideas and creativity. And that makes it so that it's it's you know, you can literally have whatever you want to. Creativity is the limit. Yeah, that's that's really cool. It's like very collaborative and collegial. That's really good.

Outro  26:47  
Okay, so we'd like to say thank you for supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe, like and share. And you can reach out to us by email at LoveScience podcast@gmail.com. Please send any questions from past guests, comments about the show, or suggestions for guests that you'd like to hear. They'd love to hear from you. Until next time, bye

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