Raven Amos on DeviantArt

Winter Moon / Troodon in the Rushes II

Available as prints on Threadless and as shirts and more on Neatoshop!

An ukyio-e (Japanese woodblock art) inspired painting of two Geminiraptor suarezarum wading through a seasonal floodplain, hunting for a midnight snack under a full moon.

Geminiraptor suarezarum is a small Troodontid dinosaur named after the fossil site discovered by twin geologists Dr.'s Celina Suarez and Marina Suarez. The holotype specimen, a portion of the end of the animal's snout, was found in the Lower Yellow Cat Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, and is dated to be between 139 to 134 million years old. The area is shown to have been subject to seasonal flooding and has thick layers of mudstone deposited from nearby ancient river channels. Petrified logs from conifer trees measuring a meter across shows this was a wet, warm world home to extremes - from giant sauropods and trees looming tall as any skyscraper, to the dimunitive and small, ekeing out an existence in the misty margins of an ephemeral rush-lined marsh.

Sources:

Aubrey, W.M. (1998). "A newly discovered, widespread fluvial facies and unconformity marking the Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous boundary, Colorado Plateau". Modern Geology. 22: 209–233

Kirkland, J.I.; Britt, B.; Burge, D.; Carpenter, K.; Cifelli, R.; DeCourten, F.; Eaton, J.; Hasiotis, S.; Lawton, T. (1997b). "Lower to Middle Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of the Central Colorado Plateau: a key to understanding 35 million years of tectonics, sedimentology, evolution, and biogeography". Brigham Young University Geology Studies. 42: 69–103

Chronostratigraphy and terrestrial palaeoclimatology of Berriasian–Hauterivian strata of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, USA Joeckel,R. M. et al. Geological Society, London, Special Publications(2020),498(1):75

Senter, P.; Kirkland, J. I.; Bird, J.; Bartlett, J. A. (2010). "A New Troodontid Theropod Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Utah". PLOS ONE. 5 (12): e14329. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014329

***I DO NOT CONSENT TO THE MINTING OF MY ART AS SO-CALLED NFTs/non-fungible tokens/cryptoart/monetized graphics/blockchain tokens or assets/blockchain-adjacent tokens or assets, NOR IN THE USE OF ANY POSSIBLE FUTURE BLOCKCHAIN-RELATED ASSETS/TOKENS/TECHNOLOGIES BUILT UPON CRYPTOCURRENCY OR BLOCKCHAIN***
If you see any of my art on any NFT/cryptoart site, you can be 100% assured it was stolen and used without my permission.


Troodon In The Rushes

A troodon pauses for a drink at a rush-lined creek underneath a spreading ginkgo tree in the Colville River Basin, North Slope, Alaska ~70 million years ago. Digital illustration.

The painting that kickstarted my career! I did this in 2011 for a joint art show with my husband Scott Elyard called "Dinosaurs and Robots".

King of the Electric Jungle

A lounging blue Tyrannosaur stares out of a hazy electric green jungle across a lazy stream on a warm afternoon in late summer.

Although I was more interested in exploring color and patterns rather than exploring science with this painting, I also included some findings on Tyrannosaur skin covering and compared the bone textures on the skull with the skulls of crocodiles and birds - Tyrannosaurus rex's smaller cousin Daspletosaurus horneri seems to have sported a tactile snout, not unlike a crocodile's, complete with sensory pits called "foramina".

As fond as I am of the idea of all kin of Tyrannosaurus sporting at least some sparse coat of feathers, I must concede that at this time, there is no evidence to support such on the super-large members of the family tree, and other skin impressions might hint at large Tyrannosaurs, especially those in southern climates, were more scaly "murdercrocs" rather than my preferred "murderbirds".

Scaly T. rexes seem to be "back", scientifically speaking - for now.

For this reason, I felt a desire to evoke the hazy, nostalgic color palettes, themes, and patterns associated with the "Vaporwave" art and music movement as seen through the lens of "deep time". The coloration and pattern, though fantastically and speculatively garish, is also somewhat rooted in science - Bob Nicholls' 2016 Psittacosaurus sculpture and subsequent co-authored scientific paper discusses a coat pattern known as "countershading" - combinations of light and dark colors that break up an animal's outline, usually involving the lighter color on the belly and the darker color on top.

Colors and patterns inspired by Roger Dean.

Citations:

Carr, T. D., Varricchio, D. J., Sedlmayr, J. C., Roberts, E. M., & Moore, J. R. (2017). A new tyrannosaur with evidence for anagenesis and crocodile-like facial sensory system. Scientific Reports, 7(1). doi:10.1038/srep44942

Vinther, J., Nicholls, R., Lautenschlager, S., Pittman, M., Kaye, T., Rayfield, E., . . . Cuthill, I. (2016). 3D Camouflage in an Ornithischian Dinosaur. Current Biology, 26(18), 2456-2462. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.06.065


Flower Dance

An electric blue Parksosaurus warreni “dances” among a wide variety of flowering plants known from different locations across Alaska and Russia during the Cretaceous era. While we are most familiar with the Pleistocene-era Bering land bridge connecting North America and Eurasia, evidence of many shared fossil plant and animal species show Alaska also bridged the continents during the late Cretaceous. Plant fossils across the arctic point to a warm, dense forest that covered the northern extreme of both continents, brimming with many flowering plant species and a wide diversity of fauna.

A list of reference papers used in making this painting are on my website: cgfx.us/flower-dance

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***I DO NOT CONSENT TO THE MINTING OF MY ART AS NFTs/non-fungible tokens/monetized graphics***
If you see any of my art on any NFT site, you can be 100% assured it was stolen and used without my permission.


Pterosaur Sunset

Fossil footprints found in Denali National Park revealed that at least two species of pterosaur (ancient flying reptiles that were "cousins" to dinosaurs) roamed the north lands and flew the chilly skies of Cretaceous Alaska around 70 million years ago. Pictured here is the larger of the two species - a large azhdarchid modeled after Quetzalcoatlus - which is thought to have achieved the height of a full-grown giraffe with a wingspan rivaling that of a single-engine airplane.

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***I DO NOT CONSENT TO THE MINTING OF MY ART AS NFTs/non-fungible tokens/monetized graphics***
If you see any of my art on any NFT site, you can be 100% assured it was stolen and used without my permission.

Fishing in the Land of Giants

A scene of the estuaries of Pleistocene era California depicting a scavenging short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, feeding off a spawned-out female Oncorhynchus rastrosus, the "saber-toothed" salmon, with an entourage of ancestral California gulls, Larus californicus. In the water, a pair of speculative ocean-phase Oncorhynchus enters the estuary looking for food, while a pair of spawning males jockey for status and position, ready to meet their fate upstream.

Produced for the upcoming textbook by Dr. Darren Naish of University of Portsmouth, England tentatively titled "The Vertebrate Fossil Record". Want to see more art and sketches? Subscribe to my Patreon page (www.patreon.com/alaskanime) and get sneak peeks at my works in progress, early access to finished paintings and more!


17 Years of Weird Art

It's DeviantArt's 17th birthday! Here's a thing that's weird using their template - a guy with a handlebar moustache and frizzy hair in awe at a flying goldfish with a bird in his hair and an elephant at his elbow.

Onchorhynchus rastrosus (2017)

An updated and more accurate version of the giant Miocene-Pleistocene era "saber-toothed" salmon. It turns out their "saber teeth" were actually outward-facing tusks the length of an adult's thumb.

Dinosaurs Are Gnarly!

Live fast, die ugly! Some predatory dinosaurs led rough and dangerous lives, often leaving them scarred and in ill health. In fact, many dinosaur skeletons reveal old battle scars and wounds sustained in life, as well as symptoms of disease.

Available as a shirt (and other items) on NeatoShop and Design By Humans!

NeatoShop:
www.neatoshop.com/product/Dino…
Design By Humans:
www.designbyhumans.com/shop/t-…

Alice in Wonderland

Alice the pint-sized Nanuqsaurus takes a turn into a forgotten garden of ancient ferns, gingkoes, conifers, and cycad holdovers from a younger, wetter Earth along the banks of ancestral Prince Creek and Colville River - no doubt, feeling very small indeed among the towering cypress and dawn redwood trees.

Yawning Papilloma Virus-Infected Deinonychus

A yawning Deinonychus (doing that weird neck thing that shoebills and pelicans can do) suffers from a form of Papilloma virus heavily infecting his legs and other parts of his body.

Different Takes on Dimetrodon

Various versions of Dimetrodon, with and without sails or humps, and with both mammalian and reptilian faces.

Oncorhynchus rastrosus

Saber-toothed salmon of the North American West Coast from the Miocene to the Pleistocene.

Deal With It

There, I fixed it. Happy now?!

Cheeky Anurognathus TeeSpring Shirt

A few months ago, our little kitty, Kutuzov, fell ill and had to be put on kidney dialysis - to no avail. His passing has left a huge hole in our hearts, not to mention a dent in our wallet. The total vet costs wiped out our meager savings, and in the middle of all this, we are finding ourselves having to move. I am offering this anurognathus design, colored in the coat pattern and colors of our late kitty, as a way to offset the costs of his final vet bill.

teespring.com/anurognathus-pte…

Anurognathus - Cheeky Pterosaur Challenge!

I was challenged by to answer 13 questions or take an art challenge. I opted for the challenge to draw a "cheeky pterosaur" before the end of the day - here is the result. I will probably color this soon.

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