Titanosaur: you're going to need a bigger Museum…

Titanosaur: Life as the biggest dinosaur is published by the Natural History Museum (London) in conjunction with a NEW exhibition.

It’s a little book about a big animal (Patagotitan mayoram) that was discovered in Patagonia in 2014. Well, fossilised bones were discovered in Patagonia – but it was enough to help scientists flesh out this enormous vegetarian.

The story is told through the eyes of Waterhouse the mouse (mus musculus) who is searching for the creature he understands is visiting the Museum (magnum aedificium). But can he find him?

This is the first time I’ve drawn a monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) and I was able to spend time in the summer (aestas) drawing the Museum building from the gardens, and from photos taken from across the road (via). I used this virtual map which helped me get a mouse’s perspective of the interior.

The illustrations were made with an oil pencil, graphite, ink and gouache and a lot of collage with kraft paper. When the two main subjects in a book vary so greatly in scale, it can be tricky to depict them together in one spread without resorting to exaggerated perspective and other tricks and I think I achieved this with all the dexterity of a patagotitan on ice skates. We printed the book in two inks: black and a neon green ink.

Video trailer for Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur

© David Mackintosh/Natural History Museum, London. 2022.

The jacket reverse and case.

Titanosaur joins Dippy, also published by the Natural History Museum.

Waterhouse, the resident mouse.

Front entrance to the Museum.

The monkey puzzle tree.

Tom towers over titanosaur and is much fuzzier.

International Handwriting Day is nigh…

As far as international days go, International Handwriting Day is a nice reminder of a fading art. Generally, I mean. I know there must be other people who enjoy writing with a pen on a piece or paper and telling others about it, but I don’t think we’re generating numbers for that crowd.

I can’t remember the last time someone asked me “Can I borrow a pen?”. And I have a lot of pens too. In fact I was given another as recently as Christmas. I’m probably the ideal person to ask that.

I’m writing this on a keyboard, it’s a more direct route to the computer, but I could have written it longhand too. You may have been more keen to look at the handwritten page for an aesthetic scrutiny of the squiggles and shapes. You wouldn’t even need to read the text. You can’t say that about typewritten text.

Actually, you can.

Visitors’ Book entries for book cover design exhibition c1992. I have published these already, but I enjoy seeing them. Most of these entries are from school groups who visited the exhibition and the pages reflect the chaos that often accompanies enthusiastic groups of kids on a school excursion. I’ve said it before, but if I ever run into you in the street, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, you better be prepared to defend yourself.

"One shoe will change your life." – Cinderella.

They just had more time on their hands back then…

I’ve always enjoyed looking at historical photographs. I like to see people standing patiently for the long exposure needed for a photograph in 1860, and I wonder what their lives at that moment must have been like and how a state=of-the-art photograph must have been an exciting diversion. But then I suppose people had more time on their hands back then, too.

I read about the history of the steam powered ships and how steam propulsion was added to sail ships which soon revolutionised trade and transport.

It was good for the navies of the world too, because it meant that ships could manoeuvre better and were much faster, which is useful if you’re in a naval battle. But cannons were getting better and stronger too, and they could shoot a cannonball further. So even if you were a fast ship it didn’t make you impervious to an attack.

As technology and the industrial revolution was rapidly advancing, it was leaving the wooden ships far behind. It would take six to twelve months to manufacture a sailing ship so by the time one was finished it was probably obsolete: surpassed by steam propulsion for a start. They began cladding the wooden ships in wrought iron to protect them. Before too long, they started to manufacture them from steel altogether, as sails were superseded in favour of steam and propellers.

At the time of the American civil war, north and south had navies full of sailing ships made from wood. Someone had the idea of retrofitting them with iron cladding: they removed their masts and sails, razing them to their hulls. Now, these steam powered, low profile ironclads could withstand a lot of damage.

Although none exist complete today, there are photographs of them and they look unseaworthy at best. Formidable black shapes, with portholes for the cannon running down each side. The underlying traditional ship shape is just about noticeable. Arches where paddle wheels sit are a clue too of their past life. Reading further, with all the added weight from the ironcladding, they manoeuvred poorly, and were still quite slow. A sailor working inside the ironclad would have the heat from the engines and the racket of the guns firing to contend with, and they would have to do it all in a small, dark, noisy and crowded space. It is certainly a precursor to the WW1 tank.

But even with all these modern advances, it would take ages to load a cannon after firing (maybe twenty minutes) so a battle would last an eternity with lumbering ironclads peppering each other with shot until they depleted their ammunition and had to slowly return to resupply. I think there must have been a lot of waiting around for things to happen. In fact, some battles would become spectator events with people watching safely from the shore.

But then I suppose they had much more time on their hands back then.

The drawings above were based on photographs and lithographs of ironclads. There is a lot of artistic license used with detail in these drawings. The crew is of the USS Monitor which was the first ironclad commissioned by the Union Navy.

Plein-air (Parts Unkown)…

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. (John Ruskin).

Bucharest/London/Belfast/Minnesota/Genoa/Cadiz/Tokyp/Ulan Bataar.

Ink, oil pencil, graphite, gouache, charcoal on papers.

Season's Greetings…

Knife or Scissors: take your pick…

This video is from a series of films about materials and tools and how they are used.

In my toolbox I have some items that have been with me forever, and some things that need to be replenished regularly. I have a cheap paintbrush that I have been using since university that never loses its shape, is easy to clean and a real pleasure to paint with. I don’t know what I’d do without this brush. I also have a far more expensive sable brush that I feel the same way about when i’m using it, but day by day it becomes smaller, rattier and it’s only matter of time that it will be best put in the bin.

Summa cum laude: circa. 1990.

So, I’m looking at different items, and seeing how people use them, what they prefer and idiosyncratic observations about them. Stay tuned for more films that will be added as and when.

The first in the series is Knife or Scissors.

Knife or Scissors: what do you prefer?

Have you seen my dog?…

Thanks to Coralie Bickford-Smith for sending these sightings of this book in TATE Modern bookshops.

Photograph by Coralie Bigfoot-Smith

Photo: CBS

Thank you, Hurlingham Prep School…

Last week at Hurlingham Prep School we read Marshall Armstrong to two large groups of children in the gymnasium. The students were a terrific audience, asking some fine questions and eager to get involved in the readings by answering questions I had for them about the book.

I also saw the brand new library which puts any library I ever had at school to shame. It even had cushions to sit on.

There was only one difficult moment during the entire visit, when a student raised his hand and asked the question that has no place in any school visit. But unlike any author before me, I chose to answer honestly and truthfully: “I’m thirty-nine in August”.

Thank you to Elena and Georgia for all their help.

What you missed.

Marshall Armstrong Is New to Hurlingham Prep School…

I will be visiting Hurlingham Prep School in Putney, London, on November 16th to read Marshall Armstrong is New To Our School to the students as part of Anti-bullying Week.

Starting at a new school isn’t always easy, but Marshall doesn’t seem too bothered by it all. This story came to me from a memory of an American boy who appeared in my class one day at school. He didn’t have a uniform yet, had a strange accent and was fearless. He was just different. The boy was only there for a month and then he just didn’t come back. I always wondered what his story was.

I hope Hurlingham Prep school like me.