Books Books!

As I procrastinate I will give you a book update.


Just finished an autobiography on Charles R. Knight (1874-1953), amazing naturalist and painter... and he was legally blind. No one knows his name but everyone knows his work, he was the first artist to accurately depict dinosaurs and other extinct animals because of his study with taxidermy and his friendship with paleontologists, which they collaborated to figure out how these ancient animals moved and looked. I saw his murals in Chicago this weekend at the Field Museum of Natural History. So beautiful and huge for a man who couldn't look at his work from afar. Read the book on the train ride home. The Foreword was by Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, both amazing.
My Favorite, the Irish Deer
"Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. This is unequivocally Knight's most influential work, the classic confrontation between the horned dinosaur Triceratops and its deadly adversary Tyrannosaurus. Mesozoic era." This one was massive, wonderfully set up behind some posed dino bones.
An example on how large he worked, this not the largest of his work by far.
The artist himself
Here's more of his work
His Field Museum Murals, there were 27 massive murals which I think he did them all in under 4 years... These things spanned the walls.

I'll post some pictures from my adventure in Chicago when I load them.

Also I just ordered my copy of Illustrators 50 which has my "Snake Scarf" painting in it that was in the Society of Illustrators 2008 Student Competition. I'm excited to get it.So excited!