Evolved Encounter: Craig and Peter

Another installment of the new Encounters feature here on ART Evolved. Bringing you the run ins of our very international crew. With artists spread around the globe - from Alaska to Australia, Italy to Brazil - these sorts of encounters should be rare, yet we challenge all you palaeo-artists (AE members and followers alike) if you should encounter another AE regular be sure to record evidence and send it our way (artevolved@gmail.com).

This week's installment (okay honestly these are not likely to be a weekly event :P ) comes to you (again) from Canada. However unlike our first encounter on the eastern side of the country this one is from the west coast (that is a freaking huge distance... 3/4 the width of the 2nd largest country on Earth!) in British Columbia.


This encounter took place a mere week ago on May. 10th 2010 at the Sunshine Coast of BC between ART Evolved cofounders Craig Dylke and Peter Bond. As you might be able to tell from the suits it wasn't a standard random encounter.


No Peter was there to help Craig out doing a fairly big job...

As Best Human at Craig's wedding (note how Bond skillfully holds our Flora of Honour... a proxy for the Maid of Honour who sadly couldn't make it).

Yeah so this is not a low key typical encounter of ART Evolved people, but we still want to know about and see when members of our community (whether proper blog members or just readers/followers of the site) run into one another. Even if you live in the same city or stumble into one another at a far flung conference, please record it and share it with the rest of the community. We might even have to start keeping score (in that case Peter is currently winning at moment... for the moment :P)

Evolved Encounter: Glendon and Peter

I introduce a new (and fairly indulgent) feature here on ART Evolved - Evolved Encounters: photographic evidence of the rare and elusive meetings between ART Evolved members.  In an effort to promote community and, you know, have a bit of a laugh, Evolved Encounters showcases pictures of when members meet each other.  With artists spread around the globe - from Alaska to Australia, Italy to Brazil - these sorts of encounters will be rare!

Glendon Mellow meets Peter Bond outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.

February 2011

Making of Arambourgiania Family Unit: Composition

Arambourgiania Family Unit by Peter Bond

The Pterosaur Gallery was quite a success with some amazing pieces of Art. I thought I'd take a minute now and show you how I created "Arambourgiania Family Unit" and used digital tools to finalize it's composition.

After doing a quick image search online, I found that there was a lack of pterosaur baby restorations. Probably due to a lack of pterosaur baby fossils! Thus I had a mission. After doing some research, I decided on a family unit of two adults and three hatchlings. And to create the composition of the piece, I thought I'd use a technique Glendon (of the Flying Trilobite) used to create a web banner - done through manipulating painted elements in Photoshop.

First, I created the separate elements using acrylic paints on paper:

Background

Adult Pterosaur 1

Adult Pterosaur 2

Baby Pterosaurs

With each element a layer, I used Photoshop to experiment with the composition of the piece. Moving each one left and right, up and down, blurring them, enhancing the colour, contrast and brightness. I went through quite a few versions before I was happy with the final result:

Composition #1

Composition #2

Composition #3

Composition #4

And Composition #5, the final completed piece that I was happy with.

Having the freedom to move and manipulate each individual element of the reconstruction really helped get a final composition I liked. As discussed on Glendon's post, the final result is something digital, ethereal. Even though I can't just put it up on a wall like a regular painting, I really like the amount of control one has over an image. Did I make the right compositional choice? Which do you like?

Now it's time to sit down and get the Anomalocaris ideas flowing...

Thoughts on Palaeoart II

By Peter

(This post is really a continuation of this post on my blog.)

What does correct palaeoart look like? Is it Sir Charles Knight's pencils or Luis V. Rey's colourful paint? How can you capture what an animal nobody has ever seen before looks like?

This is the basic problem that artists face when reconstructing extinct animals and plants. Interpreting skeletal material, skin impressions, and footprints, they try to create life! This is not an easy job. Mistakes are made, evidence is reinterpreted, ideas and theories change. As ideas change, so must palaeoart.

In a previous post on Bond's Blog, I took the example of Minmi paravertebra and discovered a huge range of reconstructions of this small dinosaur (even with over 95% of the skeleton found!) I would understand such variation in reconstruction for creatures such as Deinocheirus, where we have only found its arms. But for a well known extinct animal, why is there such variation in our reconstructions of it?

For example, I have searched the net for photos of another well known dinosaur: Edmontosaurus regalis.

Skull length, neck length, arm length and positioning, muscle thickness and placement, feet and hand differences, even body pose... This variety in anatomy mixed with the subjective colour and texture amounts to a series of pictures that look like different animals.

Is one reconstruction better than others? What does "better" mean? If we equate "better" with "more accurate," then yes, some are more accurate than others. Accuracy comes with time, new discoveries and new ideas. Is the goal of a palaeoartist to be as accurate as possible?

What are the goals of a palaeoartist? Leave your comments below!

Artist Credits:
1. Charles R. Knight (at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History)
2. Karen Carr (2008 Dinosaur Society Hadrosaur)
3. Charles R. Knight (1897 Hadrosaurus from Century Magazine)
4. Joseph Smit (1905 Hadrosaurus from Nebula to Man)
5. Rudolph Zallinger (from the Age of Reptiles at Peabody Museum)
6. Dorling Kindersley (with DK images)
7. Unknown artist (from In Hand Museum.com)
8. Neil Riehle (2000 Edmontosaurus)
9. Unknown artist (Edmontosaurus from KidsFront)
10. Unknown artist (for the National Geographic Society)
11. Unknown artist (from the Jurassic Park Institute)
12. Unknown artist (Edmontosaurus from Urwelt Museum Neiderhell in Germany)
13. Joe Tucciarone
14. Todd Marshal (Edmontosaurus annectens)
15. Mineo Shiraishi
16. Micheal Berglund (for Bob Bakker and the Huston Museum of Natural Science)

Member Bio: Peter Bond

PETER BOND

Teacher and amateur Artist
peterbond7@hotmail.com

Craig and I started ART Evolved for one reason. To share art and technique about recreating dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, plants and ancient landscapes. As someone who loves art of extinct life, I found that there really wasn't a community of amateur palaeo-artists on the net. ART Evolved aims to bring together everyone who shares our love for art from Earth's history.

As with most of our artist members, I started drawing dinosaurs at a very young age. My first dino sketch was probably a tyrannosaur as it was my favorite (and it still is!) Drawing evolved into ink, pencil crayons, watercolours, and acrylic paints. I remember painting a huge mural of a T-rex on my bedroom door, and then another one (below) at high school (jumping off a cliff - why was he jumping? I have no idea!) My dog, Toby, for scale.

After high school, I pursued a career in palaeontology, but only finished the geology degree. I realized then that, to really be a true palaeontologist, I'd have to do a masters and a phD - I was more interested in teaching. So that's what I did. In the end, I am not a palaeontologist but a public school teacher (where I am able to share my passion for science!)

My art is varied and evolving as life is, but I mainly experiment in pencil, ink, acrylic and watercolour paint (with dabblings in sculpture, pastel and conte.) Photography is also a passion of mine which might show up on this blog. Check out my personal blog, Bond's Blog, to see my photos (and rambles on my life). I am also a member of the creative production group Prehistoric Insanity Productions, which runs ART Evolved.

Below is a sampling of my prehistoric artwork over the years:

Triceratops horridus from the Belfast Natural History Museum in pencil

A series of cards depicting the heads of Alberta dinosaurs (left-right, top-down) Ornithomimus, Albertosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, and Parasaurolophus.

Dinosaur cartoons

Tyrannosaurus rex in a thunderstorm in acrylics

Megalosaurus bucklandii in watercolour and photoshop

Minmi paravertebra in watercolour and photoshop

Ammonite in acrylics

I look forward to where ART Evolved ends up going. Hopefully becoming a unique place where anyone can submit prehistoric art and share in a creative, supportive educational environment. Sharpen your pencils, here we go...

PETER BOND
peterbond7@hotmail.com
Bond's Blog
Available for commissions, just email me!