Just a quick alert for some interested people. Bit short notice I know but just a month from now there is a Jehol-Wealden conference in Southampton, including a fieldtrip to the Isle of Wight. I’m sure it will be of interest to dinosaur researchers and dinophiles in the UK and likely beyond so is worth taking a look at. Here’s the link.
Well it’s been quite a while but this was never forgotten, so I’m delighted to get the palaeoart interviews rumbling to life again by bringing you a one on one with Scott Hartman, most famous for his dinosaur skeletals but also well into the more ‘traditional’ branches of life reconstructions. There’s plenty on his website and DeviantArt pages, but Scott has also been good enough to share some new and upcoming stuff too. As ever, everything is copyright to Scott so play nice and no sharing without asking him first, it’s his work not mine.
How long have you been an artist?
I’m afraid I don’t have a straightforward answer to that – while I drew a bit growing up I never really kept up with it. For a long time I approached technical illustration as a tool rather than art; even my life reconstructions were originally little more than a way to show off anatomy for quite a while. I guess the transition probably occurred when I started to do artwork regularly to help supply the Wyoming Dinosaur Center with imagery for displays; since I was doing “arty” things on a regular basis I started to learn new techniques, began to think more about composition, lighting, etc. So in terms of when I felt I had personally become an artist then it’s been a decade or so.
How long have you been producing palaeoart?
Based on my previous answer I have to say that it’s been for longer than I’ve been an artist! The first paleoart pieces I produced that were shown in art shows was back in 1995, but they were…well, let’s just say I still had much to learn. The first skeletal reconstructions I produced that I would consider sufficiently professional so as to stand on their own was 1997, while the first life reconstructions that I would still want to take responsibility for probably date to around 2001-2002.
What first got you interested in dinosaurs and art?
I have always been interested in dinosaurs – some of my earliest memories include having the Little Golden Book of Dinosaurs read to me (often several times a day). I guess from there I never really grew up. Art, on the other hand, was really just a re-occuring fancy until my work with dinosaurs demanded I take it more seriously, and from there it has grown into its own interest rather later than I imagine occurs from other artists. I expect this put me at something of a disadvantage compared to the many talented young artists I see out there that dedicate far more time to honing their craft, but luckily I’ve play a bit of catch-up later in life.
What is your favourite piece of palaeo art that you have produced?
I guess it would be Dawn Fisher (above), which depicts Unenlagia fishing in the early morning hours. It’s not really a complicated painting, but it’s one of the few pieces where I truly approached it as a compositional piece rather than a technical reconstruction, and lo and behold it turned out with the tone and feel that I had originally envisioned. I have a few others pieces that I’ve also been working on from an “art-first” perspective, but alas they are also more complex and I haven’t had time to finish them (so far!).
Who is your favourite palaeoartist or piece of palaeoart?
There are just so many ways to take (and answer) who my favorite paleoartist is – my favorite as a person? My favorite in terms of technique? In terms of accuracy? I’ve done this long enough to have several paleoartists that I am lucky enough to enjoy as friends, while the internet has also allowed for an even larger influx of new talent to be seen that perhaps would have been missed in previous decades. All of which sounds like I’m wussing out really. I guess if I had to pick one name it would be David Krentz, as I’ve always found his artwork delightful and he’s been a fantastic coworker on a myriad of different projects, from education to film and TV. My favorite piece of paleoart requires no such beating around the bush; it’s Mike Trcic’s Daspletosaurus sculpture that he did back when he was working on the original Jurassic Park dinosaurs. I’m sure a lot of it was timing (I originally laid eyes on it at my first SVP way back in Seattle), that it was one of the first paleo sculptures I’d seen in person, and the way it encapsulated much of the paleoart revolution up until then, but no other piece has made such a strong visceral impression on me. I’m just sad I didn’t have the means to pick one up back when they were available.
What is your favourite dinosaur / archosaur?
I always have a soft-spot for the animals I’ve spent time working with, including Archaeopteryx, Supersaurus, Camarasaurus, and Medusaceratops. I’m also pretty darn fascinated with all things archosaurian in the Triassic (and even the synapsids, but this clearly is neither the time nor place to talk about those one-window wannabees).
Is there any animal you would like to paint but have not?
All of them? I really love coming up with new visions of prehistoric life, but there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to get it done. And I’m about to have a lot less free time this fall.
What do you think is the most important part of good palaeoart?
Obviously good technique is important, but I feel that what makes paleoart fascinating is that it’s always in a state of tension between what constrains an artist (data and plausibility) and the freedom to follow his or her imagination. Being able to navigate that tension to produce something that is simultaneously data-driven yet fresh and imaginative is the intangible “it” that the best paleoart has in my view.
A few weeks ago I got an invitation for a copy of something akin to a graphic novel on insects that I could review. The invitation was by the author, Mozchops, and although I really had no idea what it was, but it looked superb so of course I said yes. When it arrived I started devouring it avidly, but then got interrupted and it’s been sat next to my bed for weeks glowering at me and reminding me of the fact that I was enjoying it and hadn’t finished it, let alone reviewed it. So this evening I sat down and went through the rest.
The whole thing is beautifully illustrated and is done (as far as I can tell) digitally, but with a flourish that looks a lot more like real painting than most. While largely bright and colourful, there’s some wonderfully dark images (and tone) in places that provides a superb contrast and there is also a great mix of huge closeups right the way through to vast landscapes.
The whole thing is narrated by some sparse text which is all in rhyming couplets. There is, as far as I can tell, no real story, it’s more a set of little scenes or settings with various animals going about their business – feeding, growing, mating, killing. At this point I should mention that it is all set in a slightly offset world. It’s familiar, but clearly not quite the world we know – you’ll recognise termites, centipedes, stalk-eyed flies, caterpillars, beetles and plenty of others but they are all fictional extensions of what we are used to giving it a fantasy twist.
I do have to confess that frankly I have pretty much no understanding of what the book is about, assuming it is actually supposed to be specifically about anything at all. That may have been the author’s intent, it may be my ignorance. What it does do though, is make you think – the art is beautiful and presents perhaps more an impression of how we think of the insects and various terrestrial invertebrates illustrated as opposed to their ‘real’ appearance.
Did I ‘get’ this book? Quite possibly not.
Do I like it? I’m genuinely not sure.
Is it unique and quite beautiful? Certainly.
The book can be ordered here, where there’s also lots more artwork and details, and Mozchops also has a site here with still more stuff so go take a look.
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