1999 - 7.625" x 11.75" - Watercolor, Arches Aquarelle watercolor paper
This was from a favorite photo of our son, Nick, in the mountains wearing his dad’s hat. He had a dinosaur and a wind-up toy with him. The texturing of all the different stone and rock surfaces made a great setting.
We still had that dinosaur, and it was kind enough to model for me. I replaced the wind-up toy with another dinosaur and added a third at his feet to help move the eye into the picture. Dinosaurs were a favorite topic of Nick’s. Everyone knew him as The Dinosaur Kid.
It was always a mystery to me how a child so young could not only remember the names of all these dinosaurs, but could even wrap his tongue around the correct pronunciations (when I couldn’t!) – the Pachycephalosaurus, the Coelurosaurus, the Protarchaeopteryx. He’d make me read books over and over with dinosaur stories, and I swear the author was sitting back and laughing and laughing, knowing parents were going to be struggling over the names – Opisthocoelicaudia was minding his own business when along came Australopithecus. But they both ran away when Psychoyerkillinmefrappuccino9jkxaywackisaurus showed up.
Nick would make me keep checking the glossary and pronunciation guide in the back to make sure I was pronouncing each one correctly every single time. My brain wouldn’t hold onto it, though, so the next reading found me searching the back again. I’m trying to read the story with some momentum, but I can’t even say the names, which the author used every other word. Why didn’t anyone warn me that knowing Latin is necessary for being a parent? I mistakenly studied French. And my conscience wouldn’t let me fake it. He probably would have known anyway.
If they’d only just stuck with tyrannosaurus, triceratops, and brontosaurus I’d have been okay. I could even handle the switch to Apatosaurus, but archaeologists HAD to keep finding new dinosaur remains and giving them some impossible name. That’s all I’m telling you on that subject. I don’t want to think about it anymore!