A Little Paleo-Art Director

Professional paleo-artists often are given the tough task of painting scenes of lost worlds for museums, magazines and books, but what if their work was critiqued by a four-year-old? It sounds like a bad pitch for a TV sitcom but it is not far from what artist Bill Zeman does. On his blog Tiny Art Director, Zeman posts illustrations commissioned by, and ultimately critiqued by, his four-year-old daughter.

Many of the illustrations include dinosaurs, from a dinosaur taking a bath (that was ultimately rejected) to a motley collection of "silly dinosaurs" (which was approved). One of my favorites, though, is a Dinosaurs Attack!-like painting of a Tyrannosaurs (albeit with three fingers) being x-rayed, accompanied by this background information;

The Brief: A dinosaur in a X-Ray The Critique: I just want to see a little mousey in his tummy Job Status: Approved (after addition of mousey) Additional Comments: That's what kind of bones dogs like to chew on. Dinosaur leg bones.

There were not mousies like we know them now around in the Cretaceous, but there were some mouse-like ancestors of early primates. That makes the painting even scarier.

Riley Black | | READ MORE

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications.