This was intially part of the Fox Mill Starbucks Exclusive (Winter 2020) set….until I realized that my sister would probably deeply resent it being given away. So, I’ll be giving this to her for her birthday at the end of the month, unless she sees it earlier (WHICH SHE PROBABLY WILL).
Creatives talk about the “journey”, and “creative processes” and techniques. We also have the tendency to stress over details and, unless one is particulary well-conditioned to leave well enough alone, we can be prone to over-work our pieces. We freely express what we’re not particular well-practiced in (“Oh, I’m just HORRIBLE at drawing HANDS!”).
Despite the fact that we have it drilled into our heads, “Don’t compare your work to others’!”, we still do it despite ourselves. We get swept up in realistic approaches to art, just as quickly as we get swept up into graphic, bold “styles.”
We have occasional accidents where we may spill in onto a piece that we have come SO FAR to finishing, only to end up trashing it because it’s beyond salvaging.
Hours and hours of digital work can be lost in a sudden program freeze, computer crash, or power outage, unless we have conditioned ourselves to compulsively hit the keyboard shortcuts to “Save” our work every two minutes. We lose sleep trying to better ourselves, to meet deadlines, and make everyone happy. We feel guilty when we take five minutes to NOT draw something. Sometimes we feel like we’ve reached a plateau of skill–a lack of improvement. Everything looks awful We come upon “art blocks”, and suffer from burnout. Art Stops Being Fun.
But one day, a few months ago, my sister texted me while we both were at work with an image, and a simple caption, “I did the thing.” I flipped out. I showed it to everyone around me–whether they cared or not–this magnanimous highlighter doodle of a triceratops that she did. …And, knowing the way she is, she probably did it in less than two minutes.
My sister isn’t much of an illustrator, or visual artist, despite having a very strong interest in fashion design for many, many years when she was younger. So, when she decides to draw ANYTHING, the WHOLE WORLD comes to a halt. For me, at least.
I told her, “You better bring this home, cuz it’s GOING ON THE FRIDGE.” And it’s been displayed there ever since, and probably will be forever.
I’ve kept all the art she’s done over the years.
Earlier this week, I scanned this gem, and I gave it a once over:
Torn upper edges where she ripped it out of the notepad…of ruled paper, of course…which scanned crooked, despite my efforts… A few splattered coffee stains. Lots of wrinkles.
I just sat there and smiled. I told myself, “No. No, there’s nothing wrong with this. It’s perfect.”
And thus, the piece had a name: “I Love You Just The Way You Are.”
Amargasaurus cazaui was a sauropod dinosaur with a very distinctive-looking skeleton, sporting a double row of long bony spines along its neck and back. It lived in what is now Argentina during the Early Cretaceous, about 129-122 million years ago, and was fairly small compared to many other sauropods, reaching about 10m in length (~33’) with a proportionally short neck compared to its body size.
And despite being known from fairly complete skeletal remains there’s still a lot we don’t know about this dinosaur – especially what was actually going on with those vertebral spines. While it’s sometimes been depicted with skin sails over the spines, for the last couple of decades the general opinion has trended towards them being more likely to have been covered by spiky keratinous horn-like sheaths.
But recently that’s been brought back into question. A detailed study of the microscopic bone structureofAmargasaurus’ spines shows no evidence for keratin attachment and instead found textures associated with skin coverings, along with an extensive web of ligaments connecting the spines to each other along each row.
Dilophosaurus, with a design inspired by Southern Cassowaries. I was thinking out loud about a theropod to draw, and my very dear friend suggested I do dilophosaurus, his favourite. I know he loves cassowaries too, so I mixed the two together. It was a lot of fun, and for sure the most detailed dinosaur I’ve drawn so far.
Therizinosaurus lived in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia some 70 million years ago. It is also one of the latest dinosaurs to be turned into a movie monster by the Jurassic World franchise. Available as a t-shirt in multiple sizes and colors.
Like most paleonerds, you probably have a favorite type of dinosaur. Maybe you are a fan of theropods, maybe you are more into sauropods or maybe you are more of a ceratopsian person. No matter what sort of dino you prefer we’ve got you covered! Choose one of out t-shirts and let us know what you fancy.
Do you ever wish you could get the chance to talk about paleontology more often? Of course, you do! Well, problem solved with any of these fun t-shirts. Get conversations started with strangers over topics like pterosaurs, dinosaurs (even feathered dinosaurs!) and evolution.
