Tickling the T-Rex
At one time or another almost all kids fall in love with dinosaurs. Most outgrow that infatuation and become fairly responsible adults, the rest of us become frustrated amateur paleontologists. As an artist, in my lifetime, I have painted perhaps a dozen illustrations of dinosaurs. This hasn’t been easy. Our knowledge of these ancient animals over the years has increased greatly and our view of what dinosaurs looked like and acted like has undergone a profound change. Take for instance Disney’s ‘Fantasia,’ an animated movie released in 1940. One of the segments, ‘The Rite of Spring,’ Included, no less, then the history of the evolution of life on earth. Of course, dinosaurs feature prominently in it. For accurate scientific information Disney used experts such as Roy Chapman Andrews, the director of the American Museum of Natural History, (The Indiana Jones of his time, who discovered the first dinosaur eggs on an expedition to the Gobi Desert), English biologist Julian Huxley, paleontologist Barnum Brown and astronomer Edwin Hubble. Now contrast that with this year’s modern view of dinosaurs in, ‘Jurassic World,’ and even then, they pulled some punches. They didn’t show any dinosaurs with feathers and there are some dozens of species of dinosaurs that are now known to have them. I guess we just can’t handle feathers on our most beloved monsters.
It was with a great deal of pleasure that I recently accepted the invitation to be a touch-up artist for a traveling exhibit that was coming to Treehouse Children’s Museum where I have done a lot of art work. The exhibit, “Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice,’ has four full-sized dinosaur models on which I was required to touch up the color of the creatures, (along with many other exhibit pieces). There were plenty of areas on the dinos where the paint has rubbed off because of the amount of handling by people visiting the exhibit. (In all likelihood many photos of children riding them have probably been taken, judging by the wear marks). It was wonderful fun and an unforgettable experience for me to be able sit down and gently tickle the neck of a T-Rex with a little paint to help make him come alive for visitors at the museum.
