3D Pavement Art by Kurt Wenner

Kurt Wenner attended Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center College before working for NASA as an advanced scientific space illustrator. In 1982 he left the NASA to pursue his passion for classical art and moved to Rome where he learned and experienced from the masterpieces first hand.

While in Itlay, Wenner saw an artist who explained the tradition of street painting in Europe. Working with chalks came natural to Wenner and so began his new career creating a unique form of pavement art. 

Wenner’s compositions appear to rise from, or fall into the ground.  Onlookers are encouraged to “walk” into the design.

Keep Exploring.  Canada Tourism Event, Central Park, New York, NY 
© 2011-2019  Kurt Wenner

Left: Universal Studios Japan    Right: The Flying Carpet in Bettona, Italy  
© 2011-2019  Kurt Wenner

In addition to teaching, Wenner has lectured at corporate events and conducted seminars and workshops for organizations ranging from the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution to Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Toyota, and General Motors.

God of War  Sony Playstation Floor Graphic 
© 2011-2019  Kurt Wenner

Woman Driver  Bahrain F1 Grand Prix International Circuit 
© 2011-2019  Kurt Wenner

The Interrupted Tea Party   Xintiandi. Shanghai, China
© 2011-2019  Kurt Wenner

Chariot of the Sun River Place Festival in Greenville, South Carolina
(c) 2011-2019 Kurt Wenner

Being a firm believer in arts education, Wenner has taught more than a hundred thousand students over a 10-year period for which he received the Kennedy Center Medallion in recognition of his outstanding contribution to arts educations. 

Wenner teaching 3D chalk art at Science Festival in Leominster Massachusetts   Credit:  Facebook Photo Courtesy Denise Kowal

Wenner is now working on several new projects, which will have unusual geometry. He enjoys using multiple surfaces to create single illusions and is currently moving in the direction of creating illusions as permanent installations for interior spaces. 

Incident at Waterloo   Sky HD Publicity Event, Waterloo, London   © 2011-2019 

For more information check out Wenner’s galaries at  https://kurtwenner.com

Hail to the New King

Long before there were people roaming around the True North,there were dinosaurs. In fact, paleontologists in Canada have been unearthing fossils and dinosaur bones for over 100 years, but their latest discovery is a big one, literally. The world’s biggest T. Rex was unearthed in Saskatchewan, Canada and revealed in 2019 with the name of Scotty.

Parts of the skeleton were originally discovered in 1991.  As the bones were removed from the rock, Scotty provided new information both about T. rex and about Cretaceous Saskatchewan.

Skeleton of Scotty. Credit: Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canda

For 28 years, a team based at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta has been painstakingly removing the hard sandstone in which the skeleton was embedded.  It was essentially like trying to free the skeleton from cement.

In addition to be the biggest T. rex, Scotty is also the oldest T. rex discovered in the world.  It’s believed that he roamed Canada over 66 million years ago and was almost 30 when he died.

Illustration of Scotty by Beth Zaiken/The Royal Saskatchewan Museum

The Canadian landscape Scotty knew was a subtropical coastal paradise—but life was no vacation. The dinosaur’s remains include a broken and healed rib, a massive growth of bone in between two teeth—a sign of infection—and broken tailbones possibly maimed by another tyrannosaur’s bite.

By studying many living animals, scientists have found that the wider an animal’s femur, the more weight that the bone tends to hold up. Scotty’s femur was a whopping eight inches across—which means that Scotty’s two legs could hold up more than 19,500 pounds, give or take a couple tons. When the same methods are applied to Sue, the famously complete T. rex at the Field Museum, that fossil comes out about 900 pounds lighter.

Panaroma of Sue from the Field Museum in Chicago Credit: SmugMug

Scotty truly is a spectacular dinosaur.   And, by tyrannosaur standards, making it to 30 was no small feat. Biggest or not, Scotty sets an impressive record among T. rex.

Hail to the new king.