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I just finished another piece of art for yet another interpretive panel at yet another Utah BLM dinosaur tracksite near Moab Utah commissioned by ReBecca Hunt-Foster and Utah Friends of Paleontology (aka UFOP) as part of the Respect and Protect Initiative, which aims to help protect vulnerable cultural and scientific resources by educating the public about their importance.

This illustration is a coastal scene for the expansive and thoroughly trampled middle Jurassic “Dinosaur Stomping Grounds” track site, which is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the Moab area. It’s an amazing hike, and there is lots of tracks to be found, and new ones are being exposed by natural erosion all the time. I have one more Utah tracksite piece in the works, and once it is done, I plan on putting together a video guide to the amazing track sites in the Moab area, many of which have my interpretive art on interpretive panels installed at them, thanks to the efforts of ReBecca and UFOP.

ReBecca Hunt-Foster is now moving on from her job at the BLM to her new position as Park Paleontologist at Dinosaur National Monument, but in the time she was with the BLM she lead the development of numerous interpretive sites on public lands in the Moab area. These sites now feature high quality interpretive signage, natural feature-protecting boardwalks / developed trails and increased public awareness thanks to her education and outreach efforts in collaboration with Utah Friends of Paleontology, the Moab Museum, the Moab Information Center and numerous other community organizations and granting agencies. ReBecca’s work at the BLM should serve as a reminder that a job isn’t just a set of minimum requirements to be fulfilled, it is an opportunity to test the limits of what you can accomplish even in the face of seemingly intractable obstacles. It has been an honor to create art with her during her time at the BLM, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with her at Dinosaur National Monument.

I took on two unique challenges while making the art for this sign. The initial challenge I gave myself was attempting to do the art in acrylic (instead of my typical graphite and digital technique). Ultimately time constraints and my own lack of skill with acrylic lead to me compositing multiple layers of acrylic painting and graphite + digital. If you look closely at the details you may be able to make out details where these different art techniques are interacting.

The other challenge I took on was attempting to illustrate a big landscape scene showing the dunes meeting the sea. I did several iterations of this, including plein aire studies of the coasts here in California, and several attempts at executing in acrylic.

Ultimately however I ended up going back to my tried and true graphite & digital technique as it affords a level of control over detail that I have a really hard time achieving with other techniques and which I wanted because I like having both plants and animals identifiable within the broader environment.