Today's task has been to create a footprint - not just any footprint, I might add, but a T. rex footprint. There are a couple of footprints that experts around the world concede may well have been made by T. rex, but as the NHM's Angela Milner pointed out, animals don't tend to die at the end of their tracks (there was a great horseshoe crab fossil in Solnhofen where it actually DID die at the end of its trackway, but that's another phylum), so it's very difficult to give them a 100% positive identification.
However, the tracks that have been found suggest a foot-size of around 1m long - a suitable size for T. rex, so those are the footprints I've based my model on. I started out with two sides of a cardboard box, flattened so they made one big expanse of cardboard. Next, looking at several images of the footprints, I sketched a rough outline. There's no point in being particularly careful at the stage, as the point of the thing is to look a bit rough and a bit... squidgy. Aim for a footprint in mud sort of look.
Once I'd done that, I immediately set to work with my 2:1 mixture of PVA glue (white school glue): tap water (cold). I painted some glue onto the outline of the footprint, then I lay a strip of newspaper down over the glue mix and painted more glue mix on top of that. I used my fingers then to pinch the flat bit of newspaper up into a ridge, and then proceeded to apply layer upon layer of glue-mix soaked newspaper over the top of it so I had a narrow ridge made of newspaper marking the perimeter of the footprint.
Once that was done, and while it was still wet, I got some budget toilet paper (cheap stuff from Sainsbury's value range), bunched a foot-long strip of it up lengthways, so it was still a foot long, but narrower, and lay it along part of the outside of the perimeter. The aim was to thicken the outside of the ridge and then slope down from it to the surface of the cardboard, to give the effect that it had been displaced by this heavy footprint, and pushed up from underneath, if that makes any sense!
I did that around the footprint, then lay a couple of layers of flat toilet paper/glue-mix inside the perimeter so it wasn't completely smooth. Now it's drying. Tomorrow, I shall go in search of a handful of sand to mix into paint to make it feel a bit more authentic. Pictures to follow soon!
If you've a lazy afternoon and fancy a bit of alternative artwork on the cheap, why not make your own footprint? You don't need to do a T. rex, check out other dinosaur footprints. Sauropods are funny because their prints for foreleg and backleg are close together, but the manus is really tiny and the pes is really big; kind of looks like they've been walking front leg and back leg swinging at the same time, so it has a weird, swinging side-to-side gait. What was actually happening was since they could only move one leg at a time, the back leg needed to catch up close to the front leg so that it could advance any distance at all!
Anyway, that will do for now. More updates to follow no doubt. Happy making!
xx Alex
p.s. there's an owl hooting outside. Favourite noise ever.
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Monday 16 March 2009
Getting prehistoric
Hello and welcome!
I'm Alex, a Science teacher and presenter, and I run Let's Get Prehistoric - a brand new way to get children excited about Science by mixing it with DINOSAURS!!!
To be honest, it isn't just dinosaurs, no no - it's so much more than that. I've got a real penchant for the bits of prehistory that are really...different. Really big, really small, really weird - I like the things that make you stop and say 'wow'. Those are the things that my shows are about, and for that reason, Let's Get Prehistoric is more than just talks.
In all my sessions, I back up what I talk about with lots of really big models. I've got a great big pterosaur wing, for example, 6 metres across, a life-sized reconstruction of the wing of possibly the largest flying creature ever to have lived. That was a joint effort between me and the best D.T. department ever, and it's really what brought Let's Get Prehistoric to life.
Since we're taking models, I've also got an orthocone - a 3 metre long cone-shaped shell that used to have a head like a squid's poking out of the wide end (imagine an ammonite, and imagine that you could uncoil it and flatten it out so that it lay straight - that would be an orthocone).
My pride and joy, though, is my Meganeura. Meganeura was a Carboniferous dragonfly oh so very much larger than anything alive today. The wingspan could reach 75cm!! It was unbelievably huge! Making that was a great deal of fun, and I shall be blogging about the experience very soon. There was an awful lot of PVA involved and some novel use of clingfilm.
There's lots in the pipeline for Let's Get Prehistoric. I'm always looking for new inspiration for the shows and new ways of making things to make them even mor exciting. I hope to work with acclaimed sculptor and artist Sophie Dickens to create some really amazing reconstructions of some of the most brilliant prehistoric creatures ever. It's not just making things, of course. I'm working on a few new talks and workshops, too - I'm really keen to develop a show on how oxygen changed the world. I really think it could be great, really fun and fast-moving, lots to work out. This would be for older kids, I'm thinking GCSE and up.
For younger children, 'Who's That Dinosaur' is rapidly becoming more than a talk, and turning into a bit of a puppet show - one of my favourite tools to use for the drama side of the workshops is stick puppetry, so hopefully I'll be creating some more of those, soon, too.
As for the middle of the age-range, 'Life-Sized Palaeontology' is always going to be a favourite of mine. It's been very popular with children from year 5 up to year 8 (the oldest who have seen it so far), and I will be showcasing it at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival's schools' day this year, which is tremendously exciting!
Anyway - quite a rambly start from me, but hopefully you've felt from this little snippet of Alex-ness just how excited I am to be doing what I'm doing. If you've any thoughts about the business, the blog or the creatures, or if you'd like to ask any questions or book a show, please contact me on alex@letsgetprehistoric.com.
Hope to hear from you soon, and don't forget to get prehistoric!
:) Alex
I'm Alex, a Science teacher and presenter, and I run Let's Get Prehistoric - a brand new way to get children excited about Science by mixing it with DINOSAURS!!!
To be honest, it isn't just dinosaurs, no no - it's so much more than that. I've got a real penchant for the bits of prehistory that are really...different. Really big, really small, really weird - I like the things that make you stop and say 'wow'. Those are the things that my shows are about, and for that reason, Let's Get Prehistoric is more than just talks.
In all my sessions, I back up what I talk about with lots of really big models. I've got a great big pterosaur wing, for example, 6 metres across, a life-sized reconstruction of the wing of possibly the largest flying creature ever to have lived. That was a joint effort between me and the best D.T. department ever, and it's really what brought Let's Get Prehistoric to life.
Since we're taking models, I've also got an orthocone - a 3 metre long cone-shaped shell that used to have a head like a squid's poking out of the wide end (imagine an ammonite, and imagine that you could uncoil it and flatten it out so that it lay straight - that would be an orthocone).
My pride and joy, though, is my Meganeura. Meganeura was a Carboniferous dragonfly oh so very much larger than anything alive today. The wingspan could reach 75cm!! It was unbelievably huge! Making that was a great deal of fun, and I shall be blogging about the experience very soon. There was an awful lot of PVA involved and some novel use of clingfilm.
There's lots in the pipeline for Let's Get Prehistoric. I'm always looking for new inspiration for the shows and new ways of making things to make them even mor exciting. I hope to work with acclaimed sculptor and artist Sophie Dickens to create some really amazing reconstructions of some of the most brilliant prehistoric creatures ever. It's not just making things, of course. I'm working on a few new talks and workshops, too - I'm really keen to develop a show on how oxygen changed the world. I really think it could be great, really fun and fast-moving, lots to work out. This would be for older kids, I'm thinking GCSE and up.
For younger children, 'Who's That Dinosaur' is rapidly becoming more than a talk, and turning into a bit of a puppet show - one of my favourite tools to use for the drama side of the workshops is stick puppetry, so hopefully I'll be creating some more of those, soon, too.
As for the middle of the age-range, 'Life-Sized Palaeontology' is always going to be a favourite of mine. It's been very popular with children from year 5 up to year 8 (the oldest who have seen it so far), and I will be showcasing it at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival's schools' day this year, which is tremendously exciting!
Anyway - quite a rambly start from me, but hopefully you've felt from this little snippet of Alex-ness just how excited I am to be doing what I'm doing. If you've any thoughts about the business, the blog or the creatures, or if you'd like to ask any questions or book a show, please contact me on alex@letsgetprehistoric.com.
Hope to hear from you soon, and don't forget to get prehistoric!
:) Alex
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