Artists have been making images of animals for eons.

As someone who is interested in making images of these creatures, these things that surround us, I guess the question I ask myself is what new story could I tell?

What new representation could I offer?

How could I make an image that has not been seen before?

How can I showcase a familiar creature in an unfamiliar way?

Ask a Washingtonian if they've ever been to Thorp, and they'll probably say, “You mean the big fruit stand off I-90?” Eight miles from Ellensburg, Thorp was named for the first white settler in the Yakima Valley: Fielden Mortimer Thorp.

In 1868, he homesteaded on fertile land along the Yakima River — just downstream from a thriving indigenous settlement of the Kittitas tribe.

Thorp had become a boomtow when a devastating blaze in 1943 prompted its first firehouse — which local artists have since converted into a multi-purpose space called PUNCH Projects.

One of those artists is Justin Gibbens, who combines scientific illustration with a wild imagination to create surreal watercolor paintings.

His work often starts with a visit to the specimen collections room at Central Washington University.

And you went to school here, right?

- Yeah, I got my undergraduate in art.

Sadly, I did not discover this room until a few years later when I was getting a certificate in scientific illustration through University of Washington.

If there's a particular bird or species that I'm wanting to depict, I'll come up here and I'll rifle through these drawers.

You can really observe the patterning, the color, the feather detail.

There's nothing that beats that first hand experience of just having that object right in front of you.

And you're currently also thinking about birds as dinosaurs.

- You know, I'm not unlike many children in that I had this love affair of dinosaurs.

And I know at a certain age people stop asking you what your favorite dinosaur is, but I think that's a fair question.

We should still be asking each other that.

- Yeah.

Do you have a favorite dinosaur?

Well, I love all the pterodactyls.

Their anatomy is so unlike anything else.

I guess this might be the closest approximation to a pterodactyl.

A great blue heron.

There's a charm in all this.

I kind of see it on some levels as almost like a chapel that celebrates biodiversity.

Gibbens springs alive in this room of long-dead creatures — deeply inspired by the biological wonders of the animal kingdom.

In his home studio in Thorp, just down the block from PUNCH Projects, Gibbens is surrounded by animals from near and far.

A hoard of paintings, research imagery and taxidermy watches while he sets to his meticulous and mysterious task.

You see a lot of very scientific looking illustrations here, but they often take a turn.

Yeah.

- So tell me about that part.

- Yeah.

- How did you start bringing in a more surreal element?

There's this desire to use the conventions of natural science illustration, use them unconventionally.

I guess there's this irreverent tendency, just a little flippant kind of jokester in me that really enjoys shaking up the expectation.

A problematic figure in history, John James Audubon created watercolor illustrations known for their exactitude.

Gibbens plays with that legacy in his own work, telling a story that's less conclusive, more curious.

So this is one raccoon we're seeing.

Does it have three tails?

Three heads?

Or is it moving like one of the Muybridge films of animals moving?

- Oh that's... I like to keep the interpretation open.

I think it's a curious image now, just looking at it.

Is this some malformation, this creature that's evolving and it has all these added appendages?

I have this pintail duck here.

- Yeah.

With amazing color.

- And pattern.

The texture of these feathers is just remarkable.

After choosing an animal subject, Gibbens heads to a light table in the corner of his studio, where he uses tracing paper to compose images.

Sometimes two animals layered — or one with extra limbs.

When the sketch is proportione to his liking, he transfers it to either a wood panel or watercolor paper, which he often ages beforehand, amplifying the fantastical sense that the works might be documenting long-ago beasts.

So once I have my drawing transferred and it's on my final paper, the next step is getting out my ink and going over these contour lines and just defining them in a more stark and bold way.

Once the drawing is complete, he outlines the image with walnut or India ink, then begins the watercolor painting process — a careful exercise, also called glazing.

You're adding subsequent layers of paint rather than just doing everything in one fell swoop.

You paint one pass over the whole thing, maybe, and then you come back and you do another pass.

And then another pass.

And so over time you build up the opacity that you want.

- And how about the hand cramping, is that a factor?

- I have never experienced a hand cramp.

- Oh good.

- Don't jinx me!

- Sorry!

I'm touching wood.

A natural science illustrator zooms in on the details to depict the subject with accuracy.

But Gibbens says his interpretations are also influence by a summer program in college, when he studied fine line painting in China and saw how Chinese watercolorists add translucency to images, imbuing them with an ephemeral quality that hints at the fleeting nature of life.

So for the pieces that have these surreal elements, I'm curious as to what you've heard from from people who don't know you.

Are they disturbed?

Are they intrigued?

Are these... Probably disturbed.

That's my irreverence.

It's my having fun being playful, toying with notions of evolution and biodiversity.

Nature presents so many things that are just beyond belief, honestly.

And so I guess if nature can have fun, I can have fun too, right?

Evolution is a constant.

It's not over with.

And so maybe in my own funny way, I'm participating in some evolution too.

As far back as cave paintings, humans have been trying to depic the creatures who live among us.

In a small town in Eastern Washington, Gibbens is doing the same — while taking a few creative liberties — and marveling at the complexity, beauty and essential strangeness of the animals around him.

Art by Northwest was made possible in part with the support of Visit Bellingham, Whatcom County.