Artist Highlight: Raul Martin

The giant crocodylian Dienosuchus attacking a tyrannosaur.

This is one of my favorite paleo-artist, probably tied with Douglas Henderson. Raul Martin lives in Madrid, Spain. He considers himself to be influenced by hyperrealists, which is a great influence for illustrating paleo-scenes. The point of paleo-art in my mind is to portray that which we have not been able to see. To be able to capture the awe of the extinct animals that once existed on this planet. The goal is to portray them as accurately as possible for we have no able to "see" extinct taxa except their bones. Accuracy, not mere fantastic artistic expression, is key for paleo-art. I believe that Raul Martin does just that. I do wish that he would have a bit more of an "earthy" feel that Douglas Henderson has. He has worked a lot with acrylics which is one of my least favorite mediums but he still does a good... excellent, I mean, job. One of the best digital art pieces have seen comes from him.
Raul Martins interpretation of dinosaurs, I think, has not been matched by many artists, as far as behavior and anatomy. His dinosaurs are balanced, lack any outlandish coloration and soft tissue add-ons. Their behavior is realistic and not fanciful. I am sure that the soft-tissue of dinosaurs could have been extreme and that their behavior could have been interesting to say the least but often, from what I have seen of some paleo-artists, sometimes the animals just are a little odd and outlandish to me.
To be honest, I really don't know anymore than that about Raul Martin. I have been unable to find any good biography about him anywhere. Here is his website, enjoy

This was done with pencil!

Artist Highlight: Douglas Henderson

It has been a while since I have written. I have been out of town for a while and the internet on my wonderful computer has been working flawlessly so I have been bottled necked from any constant writing but know that I do have a couple of posts in the works including one on the sharks of Illinios. So stay tuned. For now I thought that I would write a quick post highlighting an inspirational artist.
    The artist that I am mentioning is a fellow by the name of Douglas Henderson. He lives in Whitehall, Mt. which is right in between Bozeman and Anaconda. It would be neat if we lived closer to there. He has been around a while and his art is used for many paleo-illustrations. He illustrated a very good children's book on the Ghost Ranch find of the South-West. Some of my favorite paleo-art pieces ever are his Coelophysis illustrations in that book.
    His work seems to be influenced by early landscape artists such as Thomas Moran, Frederick Church, and Albert Beirsdadt who were 18th and 19th century landscape artists. I like such influences in paleo-art, as much paleo-art often just isn't as fine as more main-line art may be. Often times paleo-artist seems to tend to be a little fantastic in their art and many paleo-artist are starting to heavily use digital media for their art which just isn't a good substitute for traditional media, in my opinion.
   His artwork seem to incorporate much landscape and his art is somewhat earthy which is something that I also like. Also, I would say that he is reminiscent of Charles Knight and Zdenek Burian except his dinosaurs have better anatomical accuracy.  
    His work isn't perfect and I must admit that I have seen better tyrannosaurs. Some of the best tyrannosaurs that I think I've seen would have to be from Raul Martin and possibly Gregory Paul.
     You can see his work and read more about him at his website and you can read an interview with him at the blog Archosaur Musing. Enjoy.

Early Watercolors: A Part of Art is Learning.

As I put some of my artwork on this blog hopefully there will be a noticeable progression of skill. In many ways, this blog will chronicle my own skills as they grow and expand. For example, I desire to get more into painting. I have, somewhat recently, been experimenting with watercolors and I have found them to be great fun. Eventually, I would like to get into oils but working with watercolors, at least, I can learn the medium and how to work with colors. So here is my first real attempt at watercolor painting.

 Pretty good, huh? The initials do say that Charles did it. Well, that was another Charles whose last name didn't have so many vowels. There are some artists that I consider a little depressing because they remind me how far I have to go and C.M. Russell happens to be one of them. Although, He is "inspiring" too. While his paintings can be a bit depressing, at the same time he is encouraging. He was completely self-taught and often used less than professional art supplies because he was poor and lived in Montana which at the time had no railroads. As he gained popularity, though, he used more professional supplies which became cheaper and easier to get as Montana grew.
Russell like to use watercolors and the majority of his paintings are watercolors. The painting that first introduced national attention to C.M. Russell was a simple watercolor drawing that he did on a cardboard box. I probably enjoy his watercolors more than any of his other works.
So now that things have been put into perspective, here is my own attempt at a buffalo using watercolor paints.

 

It isn't that bad, I guess. You get the idea of a brute staring at you. Details may be wanting perhaps, though I have gleaned much satisfaction from it, particularly at how the nose turned out. I will try not to point out all the cow-pies in my work but will keep them to myself.  I do not think that is a good habit; I will let the viewer notice the discrepancies. The white streaks in the buffalo's beard thing, more technically called a dewlap, are from the hairs of my paint brush including themselves into the painting, then falling out of the finished work. There is a low commitment level with paint-brush bristles, fickle beings that they are.

One other thing. While I was playing around with the paints, a picture grew out of a random streak that I made, that I then developed into a simple little painting. I kinda like it.

I just flicked my brush across my paper and the general shape of this side profile came into view. I imagined different things that would look good and painted accordingly. It was fun. I imagine him to be a samurai warrior turning his head. .You would see his back and he would be dressed in classical Japanese armour. Although, I don't know if a Japanese warrior would of had that kind of facial hair. Maybe you see something different. Let me know in the comments.