Voices of Palaeoart - Brennan Stokkerman
On this final week of Voices of Palaeort, we are proud to feature the talented artist Brennan Stokkerman, whose portfolio spans both palaeoart and nature photography. You can find more of Brennan’s work on his Twitter and Artstation.
What medium of palaeoart do you create?
“I mainly create paleoart digitally through Photoshop CC although for bigger pieces I often start them off through graphite thumbnails and gauche basepaints.”
What was your impetus/motivation for getting into Palaeoart?
“I got into paleoart in a relatively unique way: through Birdwatching. I have always been into nature and as a kid I was naturally obsessed with dinosaurs, spending hours watching walking with dinosaurs and all that comes with it. As I grew older however I sort of moved past that interest until I became interested in birds on a trip to Costa Rica. Painting and discovering birds back in my home state of Ohio led me to the recent discoveries of just how birdlike dinosaurs were. This led me to discover artists such as John Conway and Emily Willoughby and the rest was history.”
How long have you been involved with Palaeoart?
“I have been involved with paleoart in some capacity since 2016 but I only began really participating in the community two to three years ago.”
Fig 1. Two phorusrhacids (“terror birds”) stroll along the coast.
What is your research process when setting out to reconstruct an animal or setting?
“I usually start a piece with an artistic composition or feeling in mind, based off a note page I keep with me to record emotions certain settings give me (for example on a sunny day I might write down “bright warm oranges with yellow greens, lines break up canvas”). I then take ideas from this list and see if I can translate them into interesting ways to depict natural history. Once I have decided how to do this, I begin searching for animals, plants, and their correlated references so that I can bring that scene to life in the most accurate way possible.”
What do you do when the information is lacking - say a species has no information about certain key morphological features. How do you go about reconstructing it?
“If a species does not have information about key morphological features, I will attempt to extrapolate what those features looked like based on closely related species. If this is not possible then I usually will refrain from painting that species as If there is not enough material to extrapolate then I am not representing much. I think beginner paleo artists underestimate just how much we can tell about how these animals looked, don’t be intimidated and keep digging further! If you really cannot find anything then maybe try a different species.”
What is your artistic process when doing a piece? Any particular inspirations among other palaeoartists or artists in general?
“My artistic process I listed above in my research process as they are very closely interwoven for me. I think paleoart can have the tendency to be very cannibalistic in its inspirations and I always try to draw my inspirations away from the medium so instead, here is a list of some of the non-paleo artists that inspire me!
Winslow Homer, Bob Kuhn, Karl Rungius, Rob Bateman, Ivan Shishkin, Claude Monet, Edgar Payne, Stanley Meltzoff, Dustin Van Wechel, Francisco Jose Hernandez, Stansilov Brusilov, Szabolcs Kókay, Nambroth..”
Which piece portraying the Pleistocene are you most proud of?
“I am most proud of my Megaloceros painting, particularly with the shapes and rhythm I was able to achieve in the pose. Rhythm is an artistic concept in which one uses counteracting forces through curved lines to achieve tension in poses. I am also happy with how the bold shadow cast by the large shapes of its antlers breaks up the animal’s silhouette. Big thanks to Midiaou Diallo for the coloration and anatomy help on that one.”
Fig 2. Megaloceros giganteus, the Irish elk.
Are you involved in any projects you would like to tell people about?
“I am currently going out of my comfort zone and illustrating medical illustrations of pathology such as the sepsis cascade for scientific publications which has been a fun challenge. I’ve also been having a lot of fun exploring extinct birds as a personal project, but I’m hoping to get back to paleoart soon, and reopen commissions so If you would like to get in touch with me feel free to shoot me an email at BrennanStokkermans@gmail.com !!!”
Finally, what is your alltime favourite animal? (We’ll forgive you if it isn’t Pleistocene)
“Haha toughest question for last, I see! That’s really hard I would have to say that my favourite animal is the ornate hawk eagle, It’s the bird that got me into birdwatching and led me to do all the things that I’m doing now, plus man is it just an absolutely stunning bird!!!”