two companion images

These were two recent congruent assignments. Both arrived at a similar conceptual device. The top image was for an story about genome research, big projects vs. little ones. The bottom was for a story about funding medical research.

I was experimenting last week with one of my students using Stonehenge white drawing paper in an Epson 4800. He'd had good results but mine were turning out kind of odd, the ink wasn't settling on the paper properly. Anyone have any experience with that type of paper or a similar type of drawing paper. We were using it mainly for its scale (17" width) but then realized we had access to some Epson paper at the same width. The Enhanced Matte paper accepted the ink much more cleanly and evenly.

Also, any thoughts on Color Profiles. I've been using Apple RGB (with my fancy new 23" Cinema!) because it gives me a better web image. But Adobe RGB supposedly works better when converting to CMYK. Any opinions?