It took two years of brainstorming… And finally they they did it! Copenhagen is the new site for a fabulous new version of Hatching the Past: http://video.ku.dk/dinosaurfamilier. The Danish team from the National Museum of Natural History have worked very hard adapting a venerable ancient building (originally the Museum of Geology) notoriously difficult to re-adjust for events like this. But with the magisterial Scandinavian knowledge of the use of space and light, they have helped highlight Peter Norton’s Gondwana Studios work. which includes my own, turning the exhibition in yet another different kind of Dinosaur eggs and babies event.
Two days ago I had the privilege to be invited to attend and talk at the opening, together with (among many others) the Museum Director Prof. Peter C. Kjaergaard, Head of Exhibitions Dr. Juliette M Frisch, Director of the University of Copenhagen Jesper Olesen. I’m glad I hadn’t lost my voice by then… later I wasn’t that lucky!
Right from the start, crowds of kids were already colouring some of my own sketches that I had adapted from the Holtz/Rey Dinosaurs. The Most Complete Encyclopedia… some of them were doing a better job than myself!…
When the Magovern’s (Charlie and Flo from StoneCo.) started this exhibition many years ago in Colorado, I bet they didn’t dream things would go this far! Our friends in Copenhagen also have been specially kind to me and this is the first time I even get to be photo-credited (scary as that might look!)…
The illustrations became perfectly printed murals once again, as good and as big as any of the previous efforts in Cardiff, London and Glasgow … with some newly requested additions as you can see!
But the greatest reward is seeing all this work so much appreciated by so many kids, They will keep coming every day relishing every minute of the activities… including not only painting dinosaurs but a non-digital, hands-on exhibition, touching the eggs and specimens, something that is very much appreciated in places like Denmark. As you can see my partner Carmen Naranjo was having also a field day there!
So THANK YOU Peter C. Kjaergaard, Mogens Trolle, Rikke Sanderhoff Mørch, Christina Ritzl, Søren Ajspur, Finn Storgaard, Karsten Elmose Vad , Rasmus Jangaard, Jens Astrup, Rikke Riemann, Gert Balslev, Anders Drud and his media team, Bent Lindow, Maja Balle and the kids Vitous and Mingus, Marie Rubæk Holm, Christopher Jacob Ries for their care and hospitality …and so many others, specially the people that worked in the design and construction of the new galleries… good job!
While we know a lot about Sinosauropteryx, to ‘almost’ even the level of colouration, we don’t know enough about Yi qi, the famous bat-like feathered dinosaur… its remains are not well enough preserved to be certain of many details like the extent and size of the wing membrane and its flying abilities… was it like a flying squirrel or a bat? For me it remains the proven, real first flying dinosaur but… Could it flap its wings? Scott Hartman tells me he doesn’t think it could fly battering its wings (the humerus proportions and the short deltopectoral crests wreck the leverage of muscles that would power the up and down stroke)… Scott is not even sure that it had bat wings! If it had them he says it instead used its wings to clamber trees in short jumps propelled by the wings… but he can’t be sure because the specimen is incomplete. Same happens with the shape and length of the legs. But one thing is almost for sure, this was not constructed as a flying squirrel because, dinosaurs are constructed differently: they were NO sprawlers, instead they had a combination of erect legs for running while using its arms for something else… like flapping perhaps?
So what you see here is a compromise…And, while we are still trying to find morphological solutions and more evidence, these two animals are for me yet another excuse to exercise my fascination for feathery colour possibilities. Even if I acknowledge the evidence regarding the “ginger” colouration of Sinosauropteryx (and have changed my previous green versions accordingly), I think there’s much more in dinosaur feathers than reducing them to the current “black, white or ginger” orthodox patterns… nature is never as clear cut, and as this article provided to me by Thom Holtz
… and for those who don’t want celebration hats or anything to do with “holiday seasons”, here’s, by request, the original version of the illustration for the “postcard”… T. rex might have been a good parent in difficult times too!
Imagine yourself walking quietly searching for prey on a field of ferns in the middle of a Jurassic tropical forest. You have good colour vision to spot any unusual coloration in the sea of greens. You discover some structures raising above the greenery and approach carefully… but you should have realised (just by the colour) that the row of structures were also warning signs… and the greenery is hiding the spiked end of it. Suddenly you are up in the air with the Stegosaurus stenops spikes lethally puncturing your crotch from underneath!
And this time for real… No helping Diplodocus restorations, no talks, no scientific accuracy… only surrealism. Hope you can excuse indulging once again in my taste for Pre-hispanic Art and the fact that I keep turning to use its influence for some of my own paleo-interests . Yes the famous Aztec symbol of the eagle and serpent over a cactus (in remembrance of the legendary origin of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, famously used as the Mexican flag’s national emblem) has been of special interest for me over the years. On my annual visit to Metepec near Toluca (Edo. de Mexico), inspired and aided by the workshop of Israel Soteno and Blanca Jiménez, and with their priceless help, I decided to do some more clay work inspired by a Prehispanic design I’ve seen years ago… and once again the raptor would go back in time and become a 
No. 2 shows it already painstakingly reconstructed and with an enamel coating to start painting it.
Once Palaeontologists get their heads down to revise classification things start to be seen with different eyes and everything changes. There’s almost a full acceptance now on the newest reclassification of dinosaurs, that managed to challenge the traditional dinosaur evolutionary tree… we were used to see Dinosaurs as “Ornithischians” and “Saurischians”. No more: we have now Saurischia (subdivided in Herrerasauridae and Sauropodomorpha) and Ornithoscelida (subdivided in Theropoda and Ornithischia) ,
It is difficult to describe my excellent relationship with a consummate professional like Mr. Kazuo Terakado, science journalist and senior researcher at the Japan Space Forum. 
His love for Dinosaur Art seems to have no bounds and has the right ideas for it. When he asked me if he could use my “Home’s Garden” for the last words of this excellent book, I understood that he knew very well what he was up to and knew the boundaries between science and “Art”. I’m very keen on the word “Paleoillustration” but as many know, I like to think that I’m interpreting scientific ideas through art techniques and leaving “art” in another realm. Perhaps it is true, we all develop a certain style that becomes almost a blueprint with our own personality… but illustrating Palaeontology has certain boundaries that “Art” doesn’t have… and those boundaries are called “science”: you have to be very careful to do your homework properly, well beyond mastering Photoshop techniques! Dinosaurs are NOT “monsters” anymore!
The book is available here and now , don’t miss it!