Art Monday: Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle

This post originally appeared on the 29th of November, 2008.  

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"...Evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.


"When challenged by a zealous Popperian to say how evolution could ever be falsified, J.B.S. Haldane famously growled: 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.'



"No such anachronistic fossils have ever been authentically found..." -Richard Dawkins

-p127-128, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006.
Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN-13: 978-0-618-68000-9.

A scan of my Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle. Oil paint on 9 pieces of shale, 2008. Prints now available.
Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (configuration A): False Rabbit 
available as greeting cards, mounted print, matted print and canvas print. Click here.

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (configuration B): True Trilobites
available as greeting cards, mounted print, matted print and canvas print. Click here. 


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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

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Art Monday: Ammonite Flax Flower

Image available in The Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop, from greeting cards to framed prints. A variation of this image was originally seen as part of the Sowing Seeds & Fossils series.
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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Art Monday: Sowing seeds and fossils

This is a multi-media drawing project about York University's landscape. Once, southern Ontario was underwater. Many marine fossils can be found here, such as ammonites. More recently, the land was used for farming. Here, I am showing flax, a favourite of mine due to its use in oil painting.

This is Sowing seeds and fossils.
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It is constructed out of beechwood panels,
a piece of shale, various pumice mediums,
with acrylic matte medium transfers of the drawings,
chalk pastel, graphite and charcoal,
mylar and india ink,
.3mm mechanical pencil with HB lead on vellum-finish bristol,
with notes from scientific documents,
and notes from my sketchbook.
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Art Monday: 1st school assignment so far

Here's what I've been working on so far for school.

Our drawing studio class has a simple structure. 1st class,presentation of the assignment. 2nd class, present progress so far and work on it. 3rd class, class and instructor critique. That's tomorrow, and the final is much further along than you can see here.
Hand sowing flax seeds and fossils.

We are to do a drawing about the York U landscape. Our professor has an evident love for nature (he came to the first class with a list from the environmental studies program of every catalogued species found on campus), and so I got to thinking about York's deeper history. Like much of Southern Ontario, marine fossils can be found. Or would be. Most of York's campus was once farmland, and any larger sized rocks are gone from the soil. The rest is landfill. There's no rocky outcroppings anywhere.Ammonite shell sprouting flax flowers (incomplete).

So I have also done a shale drawing of an ammonite. I'll show that with the final next week.

My project has also gone in an unexpected direction after last week's group discussion about works in progress. I'll find out tomorrow if I'm pushing it too far from the literal I had started with.Flax seed sprouting cephalopod.


The final is being matte medium transferred onto beechwood supports, and over-layed with mylar containing notations. I've also layered a couple of the wood supports with pumice stone medium to give it a rocky feel.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil III

The new blog banner is now installed above.
Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil IIIOil on shale, pencil on bristol and a surprising amount of digital done in Photoshop with my new tablet. Copyright to moi, 2009.

For Art Monday, I'll try to show some of the details, and maybe just how much digital there is overlaying the oil on shale. I added quite a bit of colour to this little beastie.

Insect wings instead of mammal! Do I need a new tattoo?

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
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Art Monday: shale banner progress

The new Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil blog banner is almost complete. Here you can see the oil on shale, with oil & pencil crinoids off to the right hand side.The last few steps will be to peel the bristol off the back of the shale, and scan the bristol and shale in separately. This shale is too big for the scanner, so I may have to tilt it to wedge it in, or Photoshop-together two parts.

In the little peek of it last week, Eric Heupal of Eclectic Echoes and The Other 95% suggested we don't often see enough bite marks on trilobites. Hmm. Battle-scars, eh? So far I have not put any on this little critter. This week I have taken a new leap forward in technique and invested in an Intuos 3 tablet. I know there's a couple of touch-ups I may try with it, and scars are on the list. I hope to have this baby completed in the next couple of days.

As a little aside, here's my first efforts (besides some loopy happy face exercises to get me use to the feel) with my new tablet. Remember this encrinurus drawing?
So here I've tried to mimic my pencil strokes and added two new nodules to the head, and a new elongated nodule on the left side of the cephalon. I may need to adjust the sensitivity of the pen to mimic my lighter pencil strokes. In the upper middle, I tried some light washes, and below that, some bolder painted strokes. Can't wait to play some more.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery ### Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ###

Art Monday: shale painting underway

A raw and unedited scan of what will be my new blog banner. Note the shiny wet oils glaring off the shale.

A mythical flying trilobite fossil heading for some crunchy crinoids.

Enough lollygagging! Back to work!

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery ### Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ###

Happy Flying Triloblogiversary to me...

Two years ago today, The Flying Trilobite began. A lot has happened since. I have back-posted a new "About" page which covers many of the highlights.
Last year, we celebrated with cake.

This year, I will be launching a swanky new blog banner. Another Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil painting on shale, but with a bit of a twist. More deets tomorrow for Art Monday.

Oh, and I have pie! Celebrate with coffee, pie, and the music of Julee Cruise! Cue the bass: derm derrrmm...derm derrrrrm...Warm, hearty thanks to my readers, commenters, lurkers, blog peeps, ScienceOnline session attendees, and art patrons; friends, familiy and most of all my wife Michelle who 'gets' what I am trying to do and encourages and inspires my work at each turn.

When waiting for my flight back to Toronto from ScienceOnline09, Nature Network guru Henry Gee asked me if blogging had changed my life.

It most certainly has. The degree of intellectual and artistic fulfillment I have gained rushed in to fill a void whose dimensions I had not been aware of before. I began The Flying Trilobite as a way to self-promote my art and artistic skills , which is still a major purpose for me, and I've also been enveloped by community. It's a challenge to keep up with the clever heavyweights in the science, secular and artsy continents of the blogosphere. I hope my paintings continue to inspire and find a place of interest.

What's in store for year 3?
Watercolours!
Digital painting!
Casting sculpture!
More t-shirts!
More portraits!
More human figures!
More lack of sleep, more coffee, more yearning to do art for a living, more Beagle-y goodness, more naples yellow...

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery ### Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ###

Art Monday: mucking around

Continuing to muck around with my blog banner since re-decorating The Flying Trilobite's bloggy aesthetics. Here's a look at where it's been.

The original overall look.

Blog banner year one.

Year two.

Taking advantage of the new white background, here was a pixelly version I removed after about a week.And where we are now. This feels more painterly and blends better than the hard edges.

I have plans to post a completely new banner in time for my second blogiversary in March. The shale is ready, I've been sketching and I've got a design ticking in my head.

Blog banner design is something I enjoy, and I have done some freelance for other bloggers. I've found it to be pretty rewarding to try and capture a blogger's "voice" in a 700x250 pixel space.

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Here's a making of The Meming of Life, and commentary by the blogger.
Here's the making of Of Two Minds.
And the making of Retrospectacle.
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery ### Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ### 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle

"...Evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.
"When challenged by a zealous Popperian to say how evolution could ever be falsified, J.B.S. Haldane famously growled: 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.' "No such anachronistic fossils have ever been authentically found..." -Richard Dawkins

-p127-128, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006.
Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN-13: 978-0-618-68000-9.

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Finally dry, a new scan of my Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle. Oil paint on 9 pieces of shale, 2008. Prints now available.


Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (configuration A): False Rabbit
available as greeting cards, mounted print, matted print and canvas print. Click here.

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle (configuration B): True Trilobites
available as greeting cards, mounted print, matted print and canvas print. Click here.
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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my blog, gallery and reproduction store.

Artwork Mondays: Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle

Configuration 1: False Precambrian Rabbit

Configuration 2: True Precambrian Trilobites

*You can see a bit more about this painting, and some comments at the last edition of The Boneyard, hosted here by yours truly. The title and concept refer to a quote by biologist J.B.S. Haldane, who, when asked what it would take to falsify the fossil record of evolution by natural selection, replied, "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian,".

Colours I used:
Naples Yellow - I actually tried not to use it. It's my favorite, I put it on everything. Can't help myself.
Zinc + Titanium White
Titanium White
Payne's Grey
Olive Green
Oxide Black - whoever claimed mixing your own black looks the most real (probably one of the Impressionists) obviously never tried a really good black pigment. It's not true you can mix every colour from the primaries when it comes to painting. The pigments all have their own chemical composition and chromatic values, that interact when mixed in different ways.
Quinacradone Orange
Fragonard Red Brown
Fragonard Earth Yellow
Gold - a sparkly colour I like using for the trilobite's eyes, and sometimes as a fringe around their bodies, the way Richard Fortey described pyrite from microbes outlining their soft body parts and legs in Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution. A most excellent book, thoroughly engaging.
Monochrome Tint Warm
Raw Umber

I mainly used linseed oil, with a smattering of walnut oil in some of the rabbit's whites. Linseed oil is a strong, flexible oil with a tendency to yellow a bit as it ages. Walnut is clear, not likely to turn yellow, and brittle and prone to cracking, especially after about 10 years on a canvas that bounces and bends. Since these pieces are on shale, I assume it will hold them up alright, and not bounce like it would on a stretched canvas.

The 9 pieces of shale are originally coasters for drinks, complete with felt on the bottom, which should keep them from shattering in ways to make me weep. It's a good enough idea I may use it on my other paintings on shale. I coated the shale with clear acrylic gesso to keep the oils from sinking into the stone. If oils do sink into a painting, whatever the surface, it makes it look splotchy, with some areas of glossy oil, and matte sunken areas. Retouching varnish should get the sunken oil back to bright glossiness.

For brushes, I used a variety of tiny soft synthetics, mostly with golden taklon bristles. The Shale can be a little rough on the brushes, so nothing too expensive. I'm falling in love with my Micron filbert brush.

For solvent, I used very little in the painting itself. I tend to use Turpenoid Natural, a non-toxic alternative to turpentine and odorless solvents. The problems with traditional solvents are legion. They tend to sit in your fatty tissues causing cancer for one thing. It also has a mild pine odor, not unpleasant. Breathing typical hydrocarbon-based odorless solvents is still bad for you.

Usually, when I tell people I paint in oil, they say, "Oh, I tried it but the oil fumes gave me headaches." It's not the oil, it's the solvents. Oil paint is literally a vegetable-derived oil mixed with some colourful pigment-particles. The pigments don't release toxins into the air, although with a few you need a proper mask if you are airbrushing. Breathing in the oil is the equivalent of breathing in the olive oil & balsamic vinegar you dip your bread in. Nothing to get worked up about. Unless you accidentally eat a jumbo chili flake.

I'm proud of this piece. Excuse me, I need to get some soy milk to wash the burning chili sensation out of my skull.

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.

The Boneyard XXI - Art Class

Welcome to the 21st edition of The Boneyard, here today at The Flying Trilobite! Today we will be looking at scientific illustration, cartoons, and paleo-related concept art.

The Field Trip

Has everyone got their willow-charcoal for sketches? Craig, I assume your laptop has batteries? Today we will begin our paleo-art lesson by venturing into the field. This is, after all, where we receive our inspiration. Make sure to wear sunscreen.

You cannot paint before you understand how to draw, and you cannot run before you can walk. Greg Laden tells us about a recently discovered Arabian dinosaur trackway. Make sure to follow the contours of the footprints with your eyes, dragging your charcoal lightly across the paper.

Trackways can teach more than contours. For those of you studying scientific illustration, remember not to let your eyes trick you into seeing what is not there. Brian at Laelaps has a cautionary tale about seeing evidence for giants instead of fossil sloth tracks. Giantologists reading this, please pursue the link immediately. To see a rendition of a species possibly related to the track-maker, be sure to have a look at master paleo-artist Carl Buell's Paramylodon.

Does everyone remember their elementary school readings from CRAM Science? Good.

Let the science teach you to be creative. Ah, excellent work, Microecos. The recent paper on azhdarchid pterosaurs by Witten & Naish has sparked a comparison from Microecos from pterosaur to current technology.

Sometimes it can be important to understand the scale of creatures from the prehistoric past. This life-sized statue of a stegosaurus - Jacqueline! Get down from there!

Now before we begin presentations, use your #2 HB pencils, and have your say at DinoBase's own David Hone's blog, and fill out this survey about "the state of palaeontology today". Introduction here, issues here, introduction to the survey here, and answers appearing here.

The Presentation
(In many cases, you may click on the artwork on the posts below to see the paleoart in a larger size.)

Let's begin the presentations at the end. Marek Eby of eTrilobite has captured the melancholy of the K-T event. Further back in time, the irascible Walcott is worried in Walcott's Quarry: The End is Nigh! And support paleo-art dinosaur news by visiting the eTrilobite store, and pick-up some happenin' threads.

At Bond's Blog, we have a lucid step-by-step presentation by Peter Bond on rendering a megalosaur, the final version seen at right. Thanks to Peter for allowing me to use the image! The image was created, along with a sauropod and medium theropod for Traumador the Tyrannosaur's post on dinosaurs of New Zealand.

The terror of the ancient seas swoops through Prehistoric Insanity. Craig Dylke struts his digital stuff in the latest peek of his Art of the Unspecified Time Interval. A realistic digital anomalocaris is difficult to pull off, but Craig took it many steps further and has placed it in its natural habitat, with some lovely filters to give it that undersea sense of depth. And be sure to check out Craig's spectacular trilobites, rendered with the scrapes and scratches their little carapaces must have had in life. See them here, here, and here.

Triloblog features the works of Laura Passow using Viking artistic techniques to create amazing specimens of the prolific vanguard of evolution by natural selection. The Bug Factory contains many past posts of the artist's impressive sculptures.

What is it about stegosaurs and car jokes? Charley Parker's Dinosaur Cartoons are not to be missed, complete with lessons!

Jacqueline Rae's Indohyus , published in Nature, appears furtive at the edge of the shore. Be sure to check out the rest of this versatile scientific illustrator's gallery.

N. Tamura's latest, a ferocious Paraphysornis is painted in predatory detail.

Zach of When Pigs Fly Returns continues to illustrate Mesozoic marine predators with an economy of line, making clear the bone structure of askeptosaurus and others from the fossil matrix.

Sometimes, I find paleoart so beautiful, I can't pick a favourite. Scientific Illustrator Emily Damstra paints vivid illustrations of the wonders of the natural world. It was tough to pick one -perhaps this smoothly-blended tornoceras ammonoid?-, so go visit her whole invertebrate gallery.

The Boneyard's groundskeeper Brian featured this interview with scientific illustrator Michael Skrepnick. In addition to providing the banner at Laelaps, Michael's artwork has recently been flung far and wide for his evocative image of the newly discovered "frogamander", gerobatrachus, a transitional fossil between modern frogs and salamanders. However, Lim at Fresh Brainz reckons we've seen another creature related to this ancestral-amphibian.

The Critique
I have a final piece to submit for your criticisms, witticisms and tomatoes.

The past while here at The Flying Trilobite, I've been posting a work-in-progress of a puzzle. The painting is in oil on shale. It is inspired by biologist John Burden Sanderson Haldane's infamous quote, when pressed by a creationist about what Haldane thought could falsify the fossil record. Haldane's reply; "Fossil rabbits in the precambrian."

The piece is finished. Below are the two possible configurations for the 9-piece shale puzzle I have entitled, Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle. Apologies for the weird angle: with the oils still wet it was difficult to photo without picking up a lot of glare.

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle: False Rabbit Configuration

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle: True Trilobite Configuration

Comments? Have I made it too ambiguous as to which one is true and which false?
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A thank-you to the suggestions and posts and brilliant work of the scientists who discover all the wondrous things of the past, and the artists who imbue them with wonder. If you're a palaeontologist working on the next big or feathered thing, perhaps you will consider one of the stellar artists above to illustrate a future paper.

I hope you've enjoyed this artsy edition of The Boneyard.
-Glendon Mellow
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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.

Artwork Mondays: Precambrian Rabbit

As noted on the last Artwork Monday, I am working on a new oil painting on a shale surface. The piece is a puzzle, inspired by the quote from the late biologist J.B.S. Haldane when asked what would disprove the fossil record of evolution:

"Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian."

Painting on shale is not particularly difficult. Originally, I had completed some of the work on by using a clear acrylic gesso, and then simply painting in oil on top. Gesso, for the non-artsy folks reading my blog is a fancy fine art term for a primer. Real gesso is made from calcium carbonate and rabbit-skin glue. There are some purists who disdain using modern acrylic-based gesso and prefer to use the traditional method. Pshaw! I say, pshaw! Rabbit-skin glue tends to absorb and lose humidity to the air, which can cause flexing and cracking under the paint film. Acrylic polymers do not have this problem, unless foolishly watered-down. Three cheers for modern chemistry!

I don't use any toxic solvents in my work, as I think they are simply not worth the risk. Anyway, why use those when there are more and more nontoxic equivalents on the market? (Another cheer for the chemists!) I'm not sure what taltine or turpentine would do to the shale, but it doesn't matter with the technique I am using.

I tend to paint in thin layers of colour, not as many as the great Renaissance masters like Leonardo da Vinci, but perhaps about 3 to 6 layers on each piece. On some of my canvas pieces, such as Life With Diatoms and My Life With Trilobites, I have used thick-as-honey stand oil as a final surface, giving the pieces a glossy appearance, intuitively grasped as organic when viewed in person. Stand oil is simply linseed oil that had been thickened by heat. Flip a jar of it upside down and watch how slowly the bubble rises.

Once, when I tried to coat a quick sketch of a shale-painting in stand oil, it dried in a weird way, clumping in little contours and folds, almost completely obscuring the weird little face beneath.

When choosing colours for the fossil rabbit, I have to think forward to what the trilobites will look like, as well as make it match the subject matter. I considered making the rabbit fossils bright pink to illustrate their false position in the strata, show them to be impossible. However, I think a stark white will do the trick, since most fossils are not so clean and bony, the bones long since replaced by mineral content. And here we are so far:

I would definitely say this is right in the Ugly Phase, and I want to paint out the background with Payne's Grey s badly, but that will delay painting any trilobites. The colours here will allow me to make some interesting rock-like trilobites, hopefully more subtle and appealing to the eye as being the real-deal.

My apologies for the late post.
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All original artwork on

The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.

Artwork Mondays: Untimely Rabbit

For this Artwork Monday, I thought I would start off in a different direction on an idea I've had on the back burner for a while. (Back burner? Who says that? Perhaps a more modern saying should be coined. Like, "I've had this marinating for a while," or, "I've had this painting waiting to be rolled in seaweed for a while." Ahem.)

I like to paint some of my Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossils on pieces of shale, as seen in my Page 3.14 SEED interview last year (shameless self-aggrandizement!). This painting will be a little different, and I hope lots of fun for the viewer, especially those who see it in person. (Sorry bloggy folks!)

When I was reading the excellent, brilliant, those-who-find-flaws-or-use-the-word-militant-obviously-didn't-read-it, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, for the first time, I was struck by a quote of the late biologist John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. When confronted by a creationist, asking what it would take to falsify Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Haldane replied, "Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian".

Okay, this photo might be a little hard to make out, but here's a sketch of a hare's skeleton on nine pieces of paper. I may put in an "imprint" to suggest long ears on the final paper. You see, I have these 9 beautiful shale drink coasters from Pier 1 Imports that will make a terrific shale puzzle.

"What!?" you may gasp, "has that Glendon-trilo-mellow-yellow guy lost his rigorous, scientific outlook?" Or you may say, "who? oh the Darwin-staircase guy, yeah what?"

No, silly. The creationist-configuration will prove to be false.

It's a puzzle. And if I piece it together this way...
...you can see there are numerous green trilobites sketched in. The shale pieces will have two configurations, the "false-rabbit" and the 'true-trilobite". I may emphasize the point by putting in some simple math that only works correctly the one way. Or I could paint the rabbit bright pink, but that may upset some people, since it is a blessed colour.

This piece I will likely dive right in and begin painting. I've used a clear, acrylic-based gesso to prime the shale pieces, and I'll start with the rascally rabbit.

While you're waiting for me to pointen my brushes, check out Heather Ward's birdies, drop by the Daily Mammal, or see Bond's scintillating Tsintaosaurus.
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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.
Book in the background of top photo is an excellent reference, Skeletons by Barbara Taylor, Firefly Books. The book in the bottom photo is the indispensable Fossils by C. Walker & D. Ward, Dorling Kindersly Books.

New Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil found!

...and it's on my blog banner.
It seems to be a member of the Ogygopsidae family. Hmm. Wings appear to be mammalian. Someone call Richard Fortey, or Sam Gon III.

Arthropod Meeting

Being human is awesome. I like this image a lot. It's the meeting between two species separated by about 550 million years. The trilobite is similar to elrathia, (it's missing some segments, elrathia had 13).

I like this scene. You can imagine any number of things. Hot young ladybug with a penchant for wearing red with polkadots, meets worldly, older trilobite with a scottish brogue. He's aloof, an old world reserve in his demeanor. She's desperately hoping to ask him out for a cappuccino, and who knows where the evening will go? Back to his shale for a nightcap?


Or perhaps they are from the arthropod U.N., and he's concerned about dragonfly larva settling in the coastal waters of his brethren, and she is there to negotiate a truce.

Probably though, he's just thirsty, hoping she has some nice squishy aphids he can devour.

Three Rivers Rock & Fossil Museum

Back From the Badlands

While staying at a gorgeous cabin with an amazing view near Pincher Creek, Alberta, this Ontario-born blogger got to see a local treat. Spying an ad in a five year old tourist-attraction booklet, we called ahead to see if the Three Rivers Rock & Fossil Museum was still open for business. It boasted Canada's largest collection of cephalopods. I just had to go.

On the way there, we speculated what it would be like. It sounded like a small collection, and I wondered if it would be in someone's living room. I was wrong. At the time we arrived we were the only visitors. And we stumbled into an insidious Garden Gnome Invasion. They were everywhere! My heart raced at the thought of seeing fossilized remains of early gnominids. Painting ideas were coming to mind.

The gentlemen and collector greeted us out in the winding, tree-lined front yard, obviously in league with the garden gnomes all around. Being from Toronto, it's easy to forget how large these rural Alberta properties are. We did not head for his living room; we headed to a building behind the house. The gnomes followed, I'm sure of it. Waiting to pounce.

The treaty the owner had with the gnomes was still holding. They did not enter.

Once inside, it was clear the declaration of "largest cephalopod collection in Canada" was no idle boast. There were tons of them! Check out the ammolite specimen above. Ammolite is the semi-precious "stone" interior of ancient ammonites, like mother-of-pearl, but sometimes with startling red tones shot throughout. The owner gave us a bit of information, then sat down at a desk and let us look. Each glass case held a myriad of early life forms or minerals, all hand labelled with a description and location.

At left is a pretty geode, larger than your fist. Looks like marshmallow, doesn't it?

Mmmmm....tasty geode....

I love minerals like this. The little 'hairs' on the puffball-looking formation are so tiny, it challenges the eye to pick them out.

There were shark's teeth, plant fossils, fish fossils, and enough coprolite to keep my five year old nephew entertained (at least after we told him it's dinosaur poop).

The collection is well worth the drive out of the way for any fossil enthusiast or person looking for a spot to take the family. It is a private collection however, and I would strongly recommend asking permission before taking photos, as I have done. It's polite. Rural Alberta has a bit of a reputation for being conservative, at least with Ontarians, and it was nice to see an entire museum devoted to fossils instead of fundamentalism.

Of course there are abundant trilobite fossils, even if they were outnumbered by the ancient predatory cephalopods. Here is Mr. Jumbo, a whopper of a fossil about 60 cm long. This beautiful trilobite is easily more than a match for the gnomes outside, and no wonder they did not enter the building. Is that some sort of iron-rich mineral giving it a rusty appearance? I wonder. A little sea scorpion and ammonite sit submissively beneath the pygidium of this prehistoric royalty.

There are a few tiny fossils and mineral jewellry for purchase, nothing as grand as what's in the collection. I bought a nice little brachiopod, and left the Three Rivers Rock & Fossil Museum with my appetite for prehistoric wonder whetted for more.

We left the militant gnomes behind.

Fossil Hunters at Pigeon Lake

While out at our good friends' cottage on Pigeon Lake, Ontario, my five-year old nephew and I went for a walk. These days he's always picking up rocks. Since there is a lot of shale on the beach there, I suggested we look for fossils.

A few minutes later, and bingo! My nephew has his first fossil. Our hosts were gracious enough to let us keep it.

It appears to be a shell, and it looks similar to a cockle, perhaps like a small specimen of Acrosterigma? (Thank you, Dorling Kindersley handbooks!) Trying to identify it together at home was half the fun.

Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil

This image was created for my friend Rudi's birthday this year. It is oil painted onto a slab of shale. My wife found the shale discarded from a roof in the Annex area here in Toronto.
The trilobite is modelled after Balcoracania, and once again I used the extra large pleura halfway down the body to create wings. This time, I have modelled them after bat wings instead of insect. The neat thing about this piece of shale is that it already had a natural hole descending through the slab, making it perfect for wall-hanging.