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 TC: How did you originally get started in
painting and sculpting prehistoric animals?
KC I’ve always enjoyed wildlife and landscape art. I
wanted to work on ancient life but I didn’t want to tackle it alone.
I met Dr. Louis Jacobs through the Fort Worth Museum of Science and
History and we hit it off real well. Since then, I’ve worked with
Louis and his students on many projects. They’re really great folks
and good friends.
I’ve always known I wanted to be an artist since I was six.
When I was 18, I was accepted as a chemistry student at the
University of Texas at Austin. But when I went to register, I
stopped by the art department and the head of the department
convinced me to enroll there instead.
I
avoided art a few more years after graduation working as a designer
in the advertising business. I finally decided I had to make a go of
it to be happy. I really learned how to paint by apprenticing under
my dad, Bill Carr. Now we work together quite a bit. I love working
with landscapes and animals. It’s like being in control of your own
world ; like setting up a stage or a movie set. It’s just what I
love to do.
TC (I
had the opportunity to travel to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of
Natural History last year and see Karen’s murals in the University
of Oklahoma’s new museum. See Karen's article "How
I Make A Picture" where she describes the creation of one of
these murals.)
About
your new murals - How did you go about maintaining details in a work
that you knew would be enlarged to such lengths?
KC Maintaining detail is not as much of a problem as
anticipating how much detail you need to show. You have to think of
the mural as if you are painting it full size. Actually you are,
it’s just that you can only see a small area at a time close
up.
I
would never get done if I painted as much detail on a mural as I
would a small painting. So I really approach it just like a
conventional mural and make the same judgements.
TC Now that
your murals are up and you have seen them at their full size is
there anything you would change about them?
KC It’s wonderful seeing them up. You really don’t get
to see the work as it should be viewed until it’s on the wall. In
the future, I’ll make better decisions about small animals and their
size if they will be close to the viewer. I may have to fudge
between "real" size and relative size.
TC How
much of your murals at OK show the animals at life size ? Not all of
the animals are life size are they?
KC Many of the animals are life-sized. Of course in a
painting, the size of the animal is perceived more than actual.
Animals in the background aren’t really "back there" but they appear
to be large in the distance. If they were really scaled life-size,
it wouldn’t make any sense in the picture.
TC
Under the third paragraph in your on-line bio it says that you
created bronze dinosaurs. Where can they be seen and
purchased?
KC You can see the bronze of "Glen Rose Chase" at :
Dallas Museum of Natural History, Fort Worth Museum of Science and
History, The Fukui Prefecture Museum in Japan, and Dinosaur Valley
State Park at Glen Rose. The bronze weighs 75 pounds and depicts two
animals : Pleurocoelus and Acrocanthosaurus. Several private
collectors own one and there are still some in the edition of 25 for
sale. If you are interested, you can contact Dr. Louis Jacobs at .
There is also a picture of the sculpture at my website.
I
am now casting a new bronze of T-rex. It’s nice and five have sold
already. It’s a limited edition of 15.It can be purchased through
Dr. Jacobs also.
TC Are
dinos your favorite natural history topic to work on?
KC I’m lucky enough to work with some wonderful
paleontologists and curators. I like wildlife, historical and
landscape painting also. But dinos do seem to pay the bills. It’s
great fun to puzzle out what they would have looked like and where
they would have lived. I love the folks I get to work with and I
enjoy it a great deal.
I
currently have murals at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural
History, Dallas Museum of Natural History, Dallas Zoo, Fort Worth
Museum of Science and History, National Historic Trails Interpretive
Center, Casper Wyoming (in progress), The Fukui Prefecture Museum in
Japan, Exhibits by Texas Parks and the Wildlife Department in
various parks.
TC
Would you tell us about your upcoming and current projects? What
animals or scenes are you creating next?
KC I’ll be painting Permian and Pleistocene scenes for
the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and the same for
the Indiana State Museum. I’m not sure which animals will be involve
yet. I’m working on a children’s book with a March deadline about
Acrocanthosaurus. I’m working on a book about horses with Louis
Jacobs and I’m illustrating a little children’s book on dolphins for
Scholastic Press. I will be producing a Mastodon sculpture and I
just finished a T.Rex. There are a few other things on the horizon
too, but I don’t like to jinx anything without a contract. I am also
working with the Louis and Clark Museum in Missouri on historical
images and I have a cover spread in the December 2000 issue of
Scientific American magazine. (The mag image is on Karen’s website
as well.) One more thing: I’m working with Mike Polcyn and Louis
Jacobs on some very cool reconstructions from ‘Ein Yabrud . Ein
Yabrud is a site in Israel. It contains a lot of nice material on
Cretaceous marine life including the "snake with legs"Pachyrachis,
and mosasaurs that still had legs. This is a great project and I
hope to finish it up in 2001.
TC One
more question about the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural
History. Is the museum selling copies of your murals in any shape
form or fashion?
KC The museum sells canvases of the images and
T-shirts. I think they plan to sell prints in the future.
TC
Thank you for your time. Fans of the prehistoric await your next
creations.
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