Parasaurolophus Linocut Process

 

My latest Substack is up and I show the process of the Parasaurolophus linocut prints that I made yesterday. So, check it out, if you are so inclined. Click here.

Parasaurolophus Print

 

5x6.5

print on bristol board

For those of you who might have been paying attention, I did a sketch of said Parasauropholus, the very best of all the hadrosaurs, sometime back. January, to be precise. All with the intention of doing a linocut, then the print. Which is what you see above. 

I had meant to do a Substack about the process and have that ready last month. As you can see, that didn't happen. But, it will. Tomorrow, in fact, I will do a post and show the process and more of the prints. When I was printing yesterday, I decided on red ink (kind of looks orange, but I didn't mind), but I poured some out over some dried black ink thinking that it's dry, it won't reactivate. Did I mention that I'm kind of sort of new to all this? So, as I was going along, the two colors mixed and I was getting some cool looking images. Now, I don't know the exact rules as far as numbering goes when the color changed a bit during the process, but I'm going with 1-12, with the one you see above the 1st of the 12. I'll need to check with my Jedi linocut master, John Benson to get the correct way of doing things. 

So, tomorrow. The process. 

And, I would like to re-mention that the above design was inspired by the logo done for the band Beat by Dan Ermy. He did a very cool looking elephant head that they use for their backdrop,

Neanderthal Skulls Artist Proof Sketch Cards

 

I have a ton of Artist Proof blanks laying about and I'm trying to plow through them to get them out there. Occasionally, I an contacted to see what I have, but I'm a bit impatient at times, so, here are a couple from the Dinosaurs and other prehistoric entities set released in 2015 by Upper Deck. I like how they put the names on the cards to take the guess work on just what to do. I have many specific dinosaur blanks, if anyone is interested in those.

I went with fossils of the skulls and may do the same with the other cards that feature dinosaurs. And, I took a little different approach with these two. I used colored inks and watercolor. If interested, the eBay links are below:

Neanderthal Skull 1    Neanderthal Skull 2

Dinosaur Sketch Cards

Now that I see these cards hitting eBay, I'd say it's safe to show these now. These are some of the many sketch cards that I did earlier in the year for Upper Deck. The multi paneled cards have drawing on the backs of them, as well. I do have blank artist proof cards for commissions.

James Gurney Lecture and The Lost World Exhibit

This past Tuesday evening found me at The Cranbrook Institute of Science to attend the James Gurney lecture that was in conjunction with the Lost World exhibit of over 30 complete dinosaur fossil skeletons. I arrived about an hour early and was the only person in the exhibit hall for some time, so I took a buttload of pictures and then did some sketching. You can see some of the better sketches in the above image. Before the book signing started I ran into fellow cartoonist James Anderson, so we talked comics and dinosaurs and all that good stuff. We were then lucky enough to be one of the first in line to get our Dinotopia books signed. Mr. Gurney is one heck of a nice guy and he took the time to chat with everyone who came out to see him. Once in the lecture hall we were joined by Mouse Guard's David Petersen and listened to James talk about his career as an illustrator and how he works, including research and building maquettes for his paintings.

It was a very good night and while there I also received some potentially good news, but will have to remain mum on that for now. Hopefully, I will have something awesome to report soon!

Rudolph F. Zallinger

 Allosaurus Attacking Brontosaurus (1960) by R.F.Z.

 The Age Of Reptiles (1943-47) by R.F.Z.

 Dinosaur sketches (1976) by me



Back in September, I decided to revisit a couple of dinosaur books from my childhood. I still have them and hadn't really looked at them in years and I wanted to see just how far the field of paleontology has come in the last 50 years or so (the books being written in '59 and '60). Surprisingly, the only really obvious 'mistakes' were in bone structure, where and how the legs attached to the body. I know that they now know that it would have been impossible for some of these behemoths to even hold their own weight had their legs jutted out from the sides instead of below the body.

But, even more revealing to me, was just how much the artwork (in Dinosaurs and other Prehistoric Reptiles, 1960) by Rudolph F. Zallinger had an impact on me as a little fledgling artist. Although, structurally inaccurate, the images of the dinosaurs and the surrounding environments captivated me when I was young. The artwork is beautiful with deep, rich colors that I had never seen before (or since) and upon reviewing them, I was almost immediately thrown back to those younger days and even felt some of the excitement that I used to feel when looking at them then. Very inspiring, actually. No wonder that I hung on to them all these years! One can almost feel the heavy atmosphere and humidity in these scenes. I tried then to recreate some of those dinosaur images when I was ten and the bottom sketch is one of those. I just couldn't get those deep blues and reds, but I know I had a blast trying! I think a little bit of Mr. Zallinger artwork is still rattling around in my work to this day and why wouldn't he be?

Here is a brief snippet about R.F.Z. from wikipedia:

Rudolph Franz Zallinger (November 12, 1919 - August 1, 1995) was an American-based artist notable for his mural The Age of Reptiles (1947) at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and for the popular illustration known as March of Progress (1965), one of the world's most recognizable scientific images.

Biography

Zallinger was born in Irkutsk, Siberia in 1919. He attended Yale’s School of Fine Arts on scholarships during the Great Depression, was trained as an illustrator, and he taught at Yale after graduation. The Peabody Museum hired him to paint the mural in 1943 at $40 a week, and Zallinger took a crash course in paleontology to prepare for the job. After that, the museum appointed him as the “artist in residence”, a position he held until his death^[1].


I think a visit to Yale is in my future to see those murals.