Dinosaur Art Workshops

Dinosaur Art Workshops.

Reflections on being asked to run some art workshops and my first reactions.

Wildlife art can cover such a broad range of subjects in all mediums - birds, beasts, bugs and wildflowers...in pastels, coloured pencils, oil, acrylic, watercolour, even mixed media.

So, when I was asked earlier in the year to run some children's art workshops for Berkeley Group at a school activity camp in the middle of the Weald of Kent countryside, Cranbrook, I didn't hesitate to jump at the chance - I'm happy to draw, paint and teach virtually any wildlife and nature subjects, in different mediums, and didn't expect any surprises...

I wondered what wildlife they might want to draw or paint...a bird, hare or squirrel? Maybe smaller creatures, such as butterflies or bees, and how about wildflowers? Perhaps we would glimpse a fox whilst exploring the beautiful grounds of the school in search of inspiration...even a deer might be possible given the abundance of wildlife and nature on the doorstep of the local Cranbrook countryside town.

Filled with excitement, my mind ran riot with options! There are a host of resources in my studio that would be useful so, before the exact content was agreed, I pulled out my notes, resources, sketches, past workshops, classes and chewed over ideas to prepare myself. I was looking forward to visiting Cranbrook, too, for a little direct inspiration!

My only difficulty, if there was one, was too many lovely options! Or so I thought...

Dinosaur Art Workshops

Dinosaurs were the order of the day! 

Now that was a surprise as I hadn't had much to do with them for many years - I didn't know much about dinosaurs nor how to draw them. I had enjoyed the first rounds of Jurassic Park... but only until the new all-round sound system speakers of the early days kicked in and over-did the special effects.

I certainly thought the chances of spotting a dinosaur in the heart of the countryside were remote! What would or could be the inspiration?

Although I was once a frequent visitor to the Natural History museum and other museums I couldn't remember much about dinosaurs.

Not even with regular fossil hunting 'expeditions' in Lyme Regis, almost weekly metal-detecting antics in the South of England and a month of daily treks to clay mud plains in Roussillon, France, in search of the mysterious plant and ammonite fossils...

Despite the rather glorious find of 450 million year old sea-urchin fossil in the garden whilst preparing my vegetable beds over 10 years ago...

Dinosaurs had never really crossed my path, I thought...

Not even sculpting the Centrosaurus about 6 years ago...

Oh well, that's an awful lot of interest in a subject I thought was of no interest to me - perhaps all I needed was a reason to love them! 

So I set about researching them and what an interesting subject they are! 

I didn't know that birds are 'living' dinosaurs - that immediately helped me to connect with the jurassic wildlife! 

The fact that several plant species that were around several hundred million years ago are still around today also bridged the gap - such as the beautiful, almost magical gingko. Considering the anatomy, food and habitats in the same way as for any wildlife animal, and where the similarities and differences lie, made the transition of drawing these strange-looking, often terrifying, wildlife more accessible. 

This cute baby 'plant-eating' ankylosaurus is just one such reason to love dinosaurs...not so scary after all...along with several others that I sketched and used in the art workshops that I will post here and in my online store over the coming months. 

Of course, despite the amount of research I did and the new information gained, I was pleasantly overwhelmed with the detailed knowledge a few of the workshop attendees had  - I'm sure one was, in fact, a palaeontologist in the making - with so much information and knowledge of dinosaurs, even down to kindly pointing out the already long neck on my brachiosaurus was, even so, just a little too short! 

That brings me to my 'top 5 tips' for creating successful wildlife art; number one: 'paint what you love - love what you paint' ....and the best way to do that, or even sketch it, is to know your subject! 

More coming soon...

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