Undergraduate Combines Art and Science to Aid Others, Support Lab

Last spring a University of Texas at Dallas student created a coloring book that illustrates and describes schizophrenia for a class assignment. Now the book is for sale, and the student, Landon Norman, is donating half his profits to a University laboratory studying the disorder.

If you watch Norman in science class, you may think he’s either an overachiever or a laggard. An undergraduate studying neuroscience, Norman spends a lot of time drawing what at first appears to be doodles. But a closer look reveals his sketches are actually elaborate pen and ink drawings of the class subject matter — neurons in the brain, the boney structure of the skull or maybe different types of cells that comprise muscle. Norman’s drawings are his way to better understand the detailed world of anatomy that he’s learning as part of his studies in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

“My lecture notes are just covered in drawings. I love the tiny details of science and chemistry, especially of the mind,” Norman said. “I started drawing during my neuroscience classes, and it was fun drawing the different neurons in the body with their different parts like axons, dendrites and all that stuff.”

Norman has developed a passion for science and art and has combined the two to create a detailed world of scientific illustrations. As part of a neuropharmacology class, the professor asked her students to create an artistic interpretation of a subject studied in class. Norman decided to illustrate schizophrenia, but instead of doing just one drawing that would have met the requirements of the assignment, Norman prepared nine illustrations visually describing the physiology and symptoms of the disorder.

His meticulously drawn interpretations, often abstract, of schizophrenia’s symptoms include hallucinations, feelings of isolation and paranoia, cognitive difficulties and others. He combined his drawings with descriptions of the mental disorder and realized he had what would make a learning tool in the form of a coloring book.

“Drawing definitely impacts learning,” Norman said. “People form memories by repetition, and when you’re drawing something, it takes a while, so through the entire process you’re thinking about drawing this over and over and over again. Eventually it just solidifies exactly what you’ve learned.”

He fine-tuned the finished product and created an artist’s site on the website Etsy to sell it. But he didn’t feel that taking all the profits – about $9 per book – would be right and decided to give half of the profits to the UT Dallas laboratory of Dr. Amy Pinkham, who studies the behavioral characteristics and neural underpinnings of social cognitive functioning in individuals with severe mental illness including schizophrenia.

“I knew this could be something that would be a way to teach someone about schizophrenia, and it could also aid in promoting research,” Norman said.

A senior at UTD, Norman plans to take a couple of years off after graduating and then apply to medical schools. Along with studying medicine, Norman wants to continue illustrating science and medical topics and even thinks it would be fun to be a doctor who also works as a medical illustrator.

“I view this as a way of translating words into something that someone can see and observe and understand,” Norman said. “That’s really how I view art – as a way of bridging gaps between people’s understandings of things.”

Purchase your copy of “Schizophrenia: The Coloring Book” on Etsy.