Dinosaur illustration assignment at MICA

Daniel Iturralde painting a dinosaur in Patrick O'Brien's class at MICA

Patrick O'Brien, who teaches illustration at the Maryland Institute of Art (MICA), came up with an assignment for his digital and oil-painting students. The goal was to paint a dinosaur in a convincing environment using the process outlined in my books and videos.

The classes began by watching my DVD "How I Paint Dinosaurs" and reading my books Color and Light and Imaginative Realism.

Patrick brought in some of his own dinosaur maquettes, and the students sketched them from various angles as they developed compositional ideas in thumbnail form.

Once they decided on their compositions, they photographed the maquettes and gathered images of background environments.


Then they drew comprehensive layouts of their compositions based on their references, before going to finish. Both Patrick's oil-painting students and his digital students followed the same basic process.

Julianne Ostrander portrayed her Stegosaurus on a high ridge with a dramatic view down to a lake. She captured the reflected light of the sun bouncing off the near dorsal plates to the far plates.

Niki Sauter created this digital image of a dinosaur prowling through a moody atmospheric landscape. Kudos to all the students, and thanks to Patrick for working with my books and vids!

If you're an art teacher, and you want to use my books or videos in your class, please send me some photos and I'll try to feature them on the blog. Also if you order a classroom set of my books, I can do dino drawings in them and personalize them with the student's names.
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More about Patrick O'Brien
Previously: Painting demo at MICA