Thank you for stopping by my site; I hope that you enjoy your perusal.
I became interested in drawing dinosaurs as a kid, as do many kids.
I think that a fine Diplodocus that my mother drew for me
when I was about 6 or 7 really inspired me to start perfecting my
own skill. I never grew out of my ‘dinophile’ phase. I collected a
small library of books on dinosaurs, which is still growing by leaps
and bounds. My most treasured volumes featured the captivating work
of paleo art masters such as John Sibbick, Gregory Paul, Doug Henderson and Mark
Hallett. Magnificent restorations by these individuals were
instrumental in my artistic development, and their influence on my
style is evident. I am also very excited to see the plethora of
talented artists that are making their way into the limelight these
days, including Portia Sloan, Raul Martin, Frederik Spindler,
Melissa Frankford and Fabio Pastori, to name but a scant few.
I began to draw and paint dinosaurs more seriously in 1998, when I
became involved with a gallery in Edmonton and with a local
business-sponsored event called the "Whyte Avenue Art Walk", in
which artists display their wares along a stretch of sidewalk during
hot July weekends. Shortly thereafter, I began submitting images to
Prehistoric Times magazine, then launched my first website
and also submitted work to other online galleries such as
The Dinosauricon and
Prehistorics Illustrated.
After I began my
PhD in 2002, artwork initially ground to a halt due to the rigors
of study and research. My personal website also winked out.
It was in 2005 that unusual opportunities arose. Anness Publishing in England
contacted me with a request to contribute illustrations to a
book
by dinosaur writer Dougal Dixon.
They'd encountered my art on the
Prehistorics Illustrated website.
I’m also very thankful to Mike
Fredericks, editor of
Prehistoric Times
for putting me in
touch with representatives from Scholastic Inc. and for hosting an
interview with me for the 76th issue (Feb/March 2006) of
Prehistoric Times. These parallel and, serendipitously,
nearly simultaneous contacts have catalyzed my quick rise in dinosaur illustration.
I have secured a contract with the
Canadian Museum of
Nature, the North Carolina
Museum of Natural Sciences
and have so far contributed to over 13 books and an educational
DVD within the last 12 months, encompassing both dinosaurs and
extant animals. I can hardly keep up with all the requests for artwork
that I have received recently, and whereas illustration had begun as
a side dish to my research career, it is quickly becoming the entree
itself.
As for my personal history, I’m a native Hungarian,
but my family made Canada our home in 1978.
Since then I've lived mostly in rural and urban Alberta before moving
to Winnipeg, Manitoba. I've been drawing dinosaurs all my life. I
rolled out my first 'dinosaur' (a rooster) at the age of three.
Now, dinosaurs make up the majority of my
portfolio. Dinosaurs are members of a world that is alien to us,
and my fascination with the unexplored and unknown led me to both
my interest in illustrating dinosaurs and my current career path
in science.
My academic history is eclectic. After a short stint in
undergraduate physics, I realized that biology was my mainstay and I
completed a B.Sc. in Ecology and Environmental Biology at the
University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. I followed this degree
with a M.Sc. in Ecology at the same institution. I've studied and
published research papers on pollination mutualisms in Utah and the
effects of trampling on moss in Jasper National Park in Alberta.
Now, during my Ph.D. at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, I
study bacteria that thrive in exotic deep ocean hydrothermal vent
ecosystems and in terrestrial salt springs. It's been very rewarding
to participate in deep ocean cruises in
which scientists send remote-controlled submarines to the bottom of
the ocean, a mile or more below our feet to collect samples and snap
eerie photos.
While my studies do not encompass dinosaurs per se, my
biological background is a useful resource on which I draw when
bringing long extinct ecosystems back to life with the brush, pen
and pencil. I have taken little formal training in art and am about as
self-taught an artist as they come. However, I am a quick learner
and a patient person, and I think that this combination of traits
and the loads of support that my friends and family continually offer me
are responsible for my current skill.
This has been a rewarding initial year as I have had the fortune to
work with dinosaur experts to hone my accuracy. I am highly motivated by challenges and
while I have volumes yet to learn and improve, I hope that circumstances
will continue to allow me to share my work with the world.
