Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Sunken Entrance to the World Beneath


A flock of ammonoids drifts toward shipwrecks of galleons. In the right, the submersible cruises toward the entrance to the World Beneath.

In keeping with the authenticity of the creatures of Dinotopia, several of the animals that Arthur Denison notates in his sketchbook are actual fossils from the Devonian Burgess Shale. The animal on the right is a eurypterid, also known as a sea scorpion, an extinct form that sometimes grew larger than a man. This is the New York State fossil.

"Doorway to Mystery" from Dinotopia: The World Beneath, oil on board.
"At the top of the steps was massive, ancient door...." For this painting I stayed within the narrow color gamut of this entire sequence, and contrasted the blue ambient light with a greenish upwash lighting on the side columns and warm light on the doorway.

Yes, it's Podcast Tuesday! Here's the newest episode of the serialized audio dramatization of Dinotopia: The World Beneath—but sorry, the episode was only online for a week.

The Podcast Series
This acoustic adventure was produced by Tom Lopez, mastermind of the ZBS Foundation, with an original music track by composer Tim Clark.

The Christian Science Monitor called this production "A dazzling soundscape that does full justice to Gurney’s wondrous lost world… perfect family listening.”

Episode 7 arrives in a week. Each short episode will only be live online for one week, and then it will disappear.

If you'd like to purchase the full two-hour World Beneath podcast right now and hear all fifteen episodes back to back in a feature-length production, check out The World Beneath at ZBS Foundation website for the MP3 download. It's also available as a CD.

The Book
You can also order the original printed book from my web store and I'll sign it for you. (It ships via Media Mail within 24 hours of your order. US orders only for the book, please). The book is also available from Amazon in a 20th Anniversary Edition with lots of extras.

The Museum Exhibition is now on view
Many of these paintings are now on view at the Dinotopia exhibition at the Stamford Art Museum and Nature Center through May 25.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Congratulations on having one of the most sophisticated blog, I have come throughout in some time. Its just incredible how much you can take away from something simply because of how visually beautiful it,s! You have put with each other a great blog space--- great graphics, videos, layout. This is absolutely a must we blog.
Tarun Singh

rock995 said...

Also exciting to hear the news today of the discovery of a 480 million year old arthropod--one of the largest ever at a site in Morocco: http://www.livescience.com/50111-photos-anomalocaridids-morocco-fossil.html

love your blog Mr. Gurney, Thank you for making the effort.

James Gurney said...

Thanks, Rock995. That's an amazing arthropod, all right!

David Glenn said...

Wow. I like it. We were learning about sea scorpions in my geology class not too long ago, as well as other early forms of life.