A Mammoth Impression
See how Beatriz Inglessis, a scientific illustrator and visual artist, captured the bones of Ice Age animals in Japanese woodcut prints.
Inspired by the distinctive chewing surface of the teeth of different herbivore mammals, Beatriz Inglessis, a scientific illustrator and visual artist who specializes in Japanese woodcut printing, has put her artistic stamp on the La Brea Tar Pits collection. Inglessis was invited to make prints of a range of fossilized Ice Age animals, from a microscopic California vole (like a rat) to a mammoth’s teeth. Teeth are like fingerprints, full of data about what kind of life an Ice Age creature would have led, what it ate, and if it had any diseases.
“It is wonderful that fossils can provide valuable insights for all fields of knowledge—for science and education and art,” she says. To create the traditional woodblock print, Inglessis transferred her original drawing onto the wood and then layered the color with each new block. “For me, as an artist to work in the lab and have access to this collection is a dream come true. It’s an extraordinary experience.”
Learn more about Inglessis's work here.
Japanese water-based woodblock print, 2016, of the molar of Mammuthus columbi, a Columbian mammoth, part of the Ice Age fossil collection at the La Brea Tar Pits.
Japanese water-based woodblock print, 2016, of the molar of Mammut americanum, an American mastodon, part of the Ice Age fossil collection at the La Brea Tar Pits.
Japanese woodblock print of the molar of Camelops hesternus, Yesterday's camel.
