Sketches from "Nature: Niagra Falls"

We're back in the Viral Sketchbook; darn thing is so big, I feel like have an entire Sketchbook left to fill while being more than halfway through this one.  But I got into something of a groove this time (the trick is a really soft, dull pencil it turns out) and I hope to keep it up.  

"Niagra Falls" was a surprisingly good episode; I like the ones that focus on a whole ecosystem and a wide variety of animals.  This one also had interviews with local scientists, including Paleoartist Jenna McGuire, and that was incredibly cool.

(Hey, WNET, are you planning an episode on The Maine Lakes and Mountains Region?  Because if you want help from a local artist... 😅) 

The Extinct Fine Art Gallery

Me and many other very cool artists are participating in the Extinct Fine Art Gallery.  My paintings are going to carry over into the next "cycle" of exhibits on Friday, so you have a couple more days to see the first round and-

"Trish, this is your first blog post in two years, where the blazes have you been?" 

Ah yes.  Well, in a word, I've been busy.  I've been gradually shifting my online presence over to BlueSky, and that's proven to be more of a project than anticipated.  It's been hard, but I hope to get back into the art sharing and blog-posting groove.  Thank you for your patience.

A Veritable Herd of Animated Dinosaurs!

As you may have guessed, I like dinosaurs a lot.  I like animation a lot.  And I love animated dinosaurs.  So the past couple of weeks have been awesome in that respect.  Firstly, the first episode of David James Armsby's "Dinosauria" is out and it is beautiful!

Armsby also posted this incredible making-of video and I don't know what impresses me more: the cancelled "All Days" series, the sculpture, or the "Dinosauria" series scrapbook.

And there's a teaser for the upcoming second episode.  Baby Troodons!  Fuzzy Pachyrhinosaurs!

And on top of all this, Dr. Mark Witton joined the "Fantasy/Animation Podcast" for an episode about "The Land Before Time", where they discuss the strangely intertwined history of dinosaurs and animation and the film's place in the Dinosaur Renaissance.

-----

Art of the Day!

I can't believe it's already the penultimate day of Sci-Art September.  What a great time!  I shared a lot of mostly paleoart and hopped on the "Dinosauria" fanart train:

Let's Watch the Teaser for "Dinosauria"

So this looks incredible:

Animator David James Armsby loves dinosaurs and has been hard at work on a series of five short films about life in Cretaceous North America.  And so far they look amazing.  I can't wait to see this in full!

On the Deleted Scenes from "The Land Before Time"

 I promised you animation and dinosaurs, didn't I?

That nearly a million dollars worth of content was deleted from the original "Land Before Time" is one of the greatest legends of that small but significant border town between paleoart and animation where I live.  Exactly what that content would have looked like was a big mystery, but this nice brief documentary from the channel Scribbles to Screens clears quite a lot up.  And while it does end on a sad note of we're probably never going to see the actual footage for ourselves, there's a lot of excellent rare animation art that has been found, and it is wonderful to see.  (A highlight is the concept art of the Oasis scene, where the Crown-Heads turn out to be victims of a Great Nomenclature Mixup.  A very long time ago, for some reason, Troodon was first described as a Pachycephalosaur.  And so the Crown-Heads are Pachycephalosaurs... with distinctive large talons.)  We also get a nice overview of the history of Don Bluth and his studio, which is always fun to see.

-----

Let's read Dahlov Ipcar's _The Wonderful Egg_!

I am genuinely upset that I am just now learning who Dahlov Ipcar was.  Here is a woman illustrator who lived right in my backyard and whose art has the beautiful colors of Mary Blair, the stunning patterns of M. C. Escher, and the whimsical creatures of both.  She passed away recently at just shy of 100 years old and I'm just now learning about her.  So it goes.



But never mind that now. I know about her now, and my life is the better for it. And in my research, it turns out that Ipcar wrote and illustrated a dinosaur book. The Wonderful Egg was originally published in 1958 by Doubleday and Company Inc.  This reproduction was published in 2014 by Flying Eye Books, and it is as close to the original edition as possible.



I have to say, this is as good a reason as any to write a book about anything.



So this is very definitely a book about dinosaurs for children in the late 1950's.  The palette is brown and green because Real is Brown and, between dinosaurs and all those cartoon turtles and alligators, there is something in the human brain that just wants big reptilian things to be green.  The appearance of the various animals is dubious, but I'm willing to let it slide because I just love this art!  Click for big.



The book sets out to find the identity of a mysterious egg - eggs being the one given commonality between every animals that lived in dinosaur times.  I know, but we're going to ignore it for now.  Look at this jolly Triceratops!  He's pretty remarkable for the time, walking fully upright with tail and head held high.  I want to ride on him.



This Stegosaurus is a little dated but I love him so much!  That smug smile! 



These Pteronodons really are awesome for their time.  The one in the back is a little "Flew right off the set of 'Fantasia'"-ish, but the fellow in the foreground has a proper beak and everything.



I'd have sworn the Ornithomimids in the background came from a book written decades later.  The one in the front is a little flopsy in the tail area, but I like that he's about to munch on some tasty artichokes.



I really have nothing to add to this dude except that of all the 50's Tyrannosauruses I've ever seen, I think this guy is my favorite.  He is at least in the top percentile.



We get a montage of hadrosaurs including this deeply-odd-to-modern-eyes Parasaurolophus.  I do like those pink paws though.



Now I know Mosasaurs in reality looked more like a lizard trying it's damndest to be a whale, but look at this guy!  This is the best old-school toothy sea-dragon Mosasaurus I've ever seen.



And in staggering contrast, the wonderful egg finally hatches and we have ourselves an Archaeopteryx illustrated as a proper bird in 1958.  That's amazing!  Heck, there are recent depictions of the poor critter that cannot shake the "lizard with feathers" cliche.  This is beautiful!

-----

Art of the Day!



I've been so taken with Ipcar's work I just had to do a Master Study.

It's been a long time / I shouldn't have left you / without Links of Interest to step to.

Haven't done one of these in years so let's get right into it.

* - First of all, it is Science Art Tweet-Storm Day!

TODAY BEGINS THE #SCIART TWEETSTORM. PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR THE DELUGE.

— IAmSciArt (@IAmSciArt) March 1, 2017

* - Also, if you are a picture-drawer of prehistoric life, go take the Paleoart Survey.

* - The Beasts of the Mesozoic Raptor Series figures are available for pre-order and darn me if I know which one to pick.

* - Also in "Shut up and take my money" news, look at Safari Ltd's new Tyrannosaurus rex!  Look at him!

* - There have been loads of great articles on TetZoo recently, but my favorite is this post on Paleoart Memes, what they are, where they come from, and how they're sort of an inadvertent record of the prevailing (or, interestingly, NOT) theories of their time.

* - And that article is based on a lecture Darren Naish gave during the Popularizing Paleontology event back in September.  The whole shebang is available on the event's official website.  (And now I have even more questions about "The Good Dinosaur"...)

* - Do you like post-apocalyptic fiction?  Yeah, who doesn't these days?  Start reading T. Michael Keese's "Paleocene" already!

* - Speaking of webcomics, there's never been a better time to catch up with Tom Siddell's "Gunnerkrigg Court".  Dude just wrapped up a story arc from ten years ago! 

* - If you'd like some instant inspiration, check out Burger Fiction's fantastic montage of every Best Cinematography Oscar winner in chronological order.  Their Best Special Effects montage is a stunner as well.

* - The Annie Awards inspired me to check out the work of Caroline Leaf and my God, why am I just learning about her?

* - We all need some chillout music, so why not head to E82's archive of EPCOT ambience from days past (days of future past, one might even say)?  They just added themes from CommuniCore/InnoVentions and the Horizons soundtrack is a must-have.

-----

Art of the Day!

Everybody loves the Chubby Tigers.

Let's Update Our Knowledge of Dinosaurs... in 1993!

Oh boy. This one is a doozie.



June 11, 1993 was the premier date of the original "Jurassic Park" movie, which means that today is it's 23'rd birthday.  To celebrate, let's take a look back at this Time Magazine cover story meant to not only get us hyped for the movie, but also to bring people up to speed about dinosaurs.  It's all old news to us (woah, dude, birds are a kind of dinosaur?!?) but the illustrations are quite lovely.








There's also a neat article about "Jurassic Park" where we're reminded that the special effects team was kind of terrified that their creatures wouldn't be convincing, that paleontologists were on the whole very enthusiastic about the film, and that poor Tianchisaurus (nee Jurassosaurus) might have the most ghastly species name of any animal, extinct or extant.



-----

Art of the Day!

Last month was Mer-May! Here's a cute Mer-Fay and her nymph buddy.

The "Jurassic World" Challenge!

Believe it or else, a fourth "Jurassic Park" movie is a thing that is happening and will be among us very soon. A great deal of ink, sweat, spit, blood, and feathers have flown in the paleontological community about this upcoming film. Personally, I think it looks like either hot garbage or a complete and utter sh*tshow, and I can think of at least five other movies I'd rather see this summer but haven't gotten around to yet. (I would also rather kick myself in the head than watch "Jurassic 4: The Legend of Hammond's Gold" but whatever.)

But instead of getting angry about dinosaur movies, why don't we channel that energy into a force for good? Our buddy David Orr at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs explains:

So here is an idea. It's pretty simple. I call it the Jurassic World Challenge. If you're buying a ticket for the movie, it's a fair bet that you also have that much money to give to the people who bring prehistory to life in the real world. Think of it as a matching fund, crowdsourced. See the movie, do some good. The official rules:

Donate the equivalent of your Jurassic World ticket price to paleontological research

or

Spend the equivalent of your ticket price on the wares of an independent paleoartist


Of course, you don't have to pick one or the other. Buy some art, give some money to a research effort, enjoy the movie.

There is a handy list of charities over at Chasmosaurs and nearly every paleoartist I know has a DeviantArt, Red Bubble, or whatever shop.  And yes, I helped.

The Bookshelf Tour Part Three!

Art books, reference books, and picture books this time, as well as some books I already mentioned in previous posts.



Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury - I love Jan Brett's art and this is a very nice omnibus of her charming Christmas-themed picture books.

Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation, Charles Solomon - Outstanding, must-own art book and condensed history of (mostly American) animated shorts and features, with a few stops along the way to briefly discuss animated commercials, music videos, and special effects.  Starts with "Gertie the Dinosaur", ends with "Jurassic Park", and has a wealth of animation art throughout.

Your Favorite Seuss -Basic, but good, collection of art from Dr. Suess' classic picture books.

After Man and The New Dinosaurs, Dougal Dixon -The first of many speculative biology books!  I've reviewed both books before and while they are dated, they are essential for the science-fiction illustrator's collection.

The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe - Criminy, I need to show more love to Barlowe on this here blog.  We'll run into his better known books later, but this is a very nice overview of his art and career.  It makes me long for a book showcasing all his creature designs for films, though.

Gnomes, Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet - Essential, gorgeous book.  I love the world-building so much.

Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee and Good Faeries, Bad Faeries by Brian Froud - Faeries is yet another must-have for your illustrator's library.  It's gorgeous and inspiring.  Good Faeries, Bad Faeries is a fine companion.

Arthur Rackham, James Hamilton - Haven't had a chance to properly read this one yet, but it's a very nice collection of Rackham's illustrations.

Mythopoeikon, Patrick Woodroffe - A former library book I discovered at my college's book sale and it blew me away.  Great psychedelic art.

Since the World Began: Walt Disney World - The First 25 Years, Jeff Kurtti - An essential part of any Disney theme park nerd's library.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds: The Definitive Reference to Birds of the World,  Dr. Christopher M. (ed.) Perrins - Found this giant, beautifully illustrated book in Buck-A-Book and it's been in my library ever since.

The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide, Fred Cooke and Hugh Dingle - An illustrated animal encyclopedia is a must-have and this one's pretty good.



And here's a pile of picture books, any one of which I'd recommend heartily.  We're almost finished with the tour!

-----

Sketch of the Day

The first "Final Fantasy" continues to be strange.

In Which the Bookshelf Tour Continues!

More books!  Here comes shelf #2:



That's All Folks: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation, Steve Schneider - Once upon a time, there was a Warner Bros. Studio Store in my local mall, right across from the Disney Store.  And it was actually far more awesome than the Disney Store, because it sold original animation art.  It also sold this very nice art book, which can be found for dirt cheap now and is a must-have.

Disney's Art of Animation: From Mickey Mouse, To Beauty and the Beast, Bob Thomas - I got this beautiful book at the Animation Gallery, the proverbial gift shop you'd exit through after experiencing the original Magic of Disney Animation at Disney MGM Studios (curiously, the gift shop is still there in essentially it's original form).  Note that there are two editions; this is the older and far better edition which chronicles the making of "Beauty and the Beast".  That section of the book alone is worth hunting it down; getting a nice concise history of the Disney studio with it is icing on the cake.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals and The Encyclopedia of Monsters, by Jeff Rovin - I got these two at good old Buck-A-Book and, as with the aforementioned Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals, I'll be keeping them until newer and more accurate options ever appear.  These two books are crazy extensive, and I've never quite found anything like them.

The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, John Cawley and Jim Korkis - Similar, though smaller in scope, to the above Jeff Rovin encyclopedia.   These were among the first books to try and catalog every animated character, so I can cut them some slack.  There's a nice selection of art and information about failed projects involving the characters, but it'd be very nice to have an updated book.  This one only goes as recent as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and it's a little jarring not seeing "The Simpsons" or "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". The complete text is online at Cawley's personal site.

Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopedia and Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia, Carol Rose - Never realized how many Encyclopedias of Weird Stuff I had.  These two are very good and I highly recommend them.

The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon, W. J. T. Mitchell - A very, very unusual book I (luckily, it turns out, since this is very hard to find) picked up at an antique store just based off that intriguing title.  It's an analysis of dinosaurs in human culture and I might have to re-read it and give it a full review someday.

Traditional Tales From Long, Long Ago Hardcover, Philip Wilson - Very nice collection of Celtic folktales with charming illustrations.  Plus my copy came with that radical bookmark.

Our first run of picture books!  We've got some Chris Van Allsburg, Janell Cannon, and a stray Berke Breathed.  More on the latter in a bit.

Fairy Art: Artists & Inspirations, Iain Zaczek - Another art book I've yet to read, but this is a very nice collection of classic fantasy art.

Voyage of the Basset, James C. Christensen and Alan Dean Foster - The illustrations in this book are outstanding, almost on the same level as Dinotopia.  The story... ehhh...

The Katurran Odyssey and Animals Real and Imagined, Terryl Whitlatch - I love Terryl's creature designs like crazy and I dearly wish she had a proper omnibus of art.  These are pretty good and we'll see The Wildlife of Star Wars later on.

Dinotopia, James Gurney - The complete collection.  Need more be said?  These are essential.







The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, The Complete Far Side by Gary Larson, and The Bloom County Library by Berke Breathed, and others - My three all-time favorite newspaper comics.  The omnibuses are essential if you are a fellow fan.  You'll notice I also have Breathed's picture books and the three Outland collections, Larson's There's a Hair in my Dirt! (on it's side), as well as the Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book and (on it's side) the Prehistory of the Far Side.  Both are easy to find and essential companions to the complete collections.

Next week:  We take a break for Kill, Refurb Marry.  Then, NEXT next week, more books!  Nonfiction books for the Nonfiction God!  Reference books for the Reference Throne!

-----

Sketch of the Day!

"Skies of Arcadia" reminds me of "Treasure Planet" except weirder.

In Which I Give You A Tour of My Bookshelves!

For my birthday this year, I cleaned my bookshelves!  This is a Big Deal!

Seriously, I follow a lot of blogs by other illustrators and the one thing we all seem to have in common is breaking out in chronic literature, as in the above wonderful Arnold Lobel poster.  Now that my books are as organized as they are probably ever going to get (which means that they are actually in bookshelves; I really did have piles of books all over the place), it seems like a good time to give you, dear readers, a tour.  This is going to take a couple of posts and table-breaking photos.



Going from left to right (this shelf refused to photograph well thanks to the light seeping in from the adjacent window):

Jim Henson: The Works, Christopher Finch - This is one of the first art books I owned and it has spoiled me rotten ever since.  Loaded with concept art and history, this is a must-have.

Sesame Street Unpaved, David Borgenicht - Nice companion to The Works and very similar in format.  Plus you can currently find it for dirt cheap on Amazon.

Chuck Amuck and Chuck Reducks, Chuck Jones - Even if I wasn't such a Chuck Jones maniac, I'd consider these books essential. They're packed with concept art, anecdotes, and drawing tips.

Imaginative Realism and Color and Light, James Gurney - These books together have a wealth of information for painters. I don't paint very often, so I appreciate them more as a collection of Gurney's artwork.

Various Anatomy for Artists Books - Hey, remember these guys from the very earliest days of this blog? Wow, that takes me back.  Specifically, I've kept Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy, Ken Hultgren's The Art of Animal Drawing, Fritz Schider's Atlas of Anatomy for Artists, and a little later we'll be seeing Eadweard Muybridge's essential Animals in Motion, Ellenberger and Davis' Atlas Of Animal Anatomy For Artists, Eliot Goldfinger's Animal Anatomy For Artists: the Elements of Form (it was on sale), and Katrina Van Grouw's The Unfeathered Bird.

Character Animation Crash Course, Eric Goldberg - I've been referencing it more than I thought I would when I first reviewed it.

Paleoart Galore! - OK, let's see here. We've got The Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of DINOSAURS and Prehistoric Animals, at least until an updated reference of every known prehistoric animal comes along, Mark Witton's beautiful Pterosaurs, Henry Gee and Louis V. Rey's beautiful beautiful Field Guide to Dinosaurs: The Essential Handbook for Travelers in the Mesozoic, Gregory S. Paul's Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, William Stout's awesome The (New) Dinosaurs, the two Dinosaurs: Past and Present exhibit catalog books (I haven't read them but my succinct review of this wealth of classic paleoart is awesome), and Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart. And there's more on other shelves...

The Art of Maurice Sendak, Selma Lanes - I haven't been able to properly read this yet but it's an excellent collection of Sendak's art and since you can find copies for under ten dollars, it is a must-have.

Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo, Chris McDonnell - Here's the first series-specific art book I've found that's as good as the two aforementioned Jim Henson art books. It's a must-have for fans of "Adventure Time" and is packed to the gills with concept art, interviews, and trivia.

Next, more animation, comics, and children's books.

-----

Sketch of the Day!  The first "Final Fantasy" is a little strange, it turns out.

Let's Finish Reading the Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Animal Fact Finder!

Continuing our journey through the Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Animal Fact Finder written by Dr. Michael Benton and published by Kingfisher books in 1992. The color illustrations are by Jim Channell and David Holmes, and line illustrations are by Kevin Maddison and Ralph Orme.  As a few readers have mentioned, some of the illustrations were featured in Orbis Publishing's Dinosaurs magazine.  I've previously experienced one of the massive compilations of that magazine and boy was it an adventure.

Anyway, look at that Oviraptor! Look at it!



As I said before, Ornithopods come off very badly in this book. This ugly-ass Parasaurolophus is a low point.



While it's nice to have a (not horizontal but still) bipedal Prosauropod, this is all I can see:







Is it me or is Pliohippus here downright sinister-looking? Like something horsey and unpleasant from Celtic folklore.



There's something super cute about these overly beaky Protoceratopses.



I think I used that Freak Deer gif too soon...



I'll admit part of my inordinate love for Therizinosaurs (or Segnosaurs) is based on the fact that nobody had any idea what to make of these guys for years. Freaky fish-guy Segnosaurus is one of my favorite largely forgotten paleoart memes, but in this book it takes a back-seat to this family tree:



Ahahaha, oh wow.



A fairly jolly-looking Styracosaurus, though he seems to have been drawn by someone who had only a vague idea of what the beast looked like.



Ah, Supersaurus. Again, this page pretty much speaks for itself.



And the Syntarsus illustration that led to me finding this book again. What's up, old buddy?



And finally, we'll end our journey with these... less than majestic-looking Tyrannosauruses. Those limbs...

-----

Sketch of the Day! I've given it some thought, and I have realized that of all the "You really had to be there" moments I've ever experienced on the Internet, Twitch Plays Pokemon is at least in the top five "You REALLY had to be there"-est.  (We'll never forget you, Zexxy.)