More Creatures of the Lost Sea Expedition

So I’m traveling along this ancient sea bed with my mule Polly. And I’m gathering up all these amazing interviews – folks telling me what they know about this vanished sea. Only one thing was missing.

The Prairie-eye-view of Polly taking a snack break on her voyage across America.

What did these critters look like? Sure, I heard that a plesiosaur looked, “like a snake drawn through the shell of a turtle.” But what the hell does that look like?

Enter friend and folk artist Charlie Frye. Charlie agreed to illustrate the Lost Sea Expedition TV series for me. I sketched out what I had in mind and over the next months, Charlie produced the 30-plus paintings.

They’re amazing. And they’re big. Some of these painting are over 3′ tall.

Folk artist Charlie Frye and me the day I picked up the paintings for the Lost Sea Expedition series. Propped up next to us, can get a sense of how large some of them are. Yeah, Charlie's a pretty big dude. — Folk artist Charlie Frye and me the day I picked up the paintings for the Lost Sea Expedition series. Charlie’s a pretty big dude so you can get a sense of the size of these pieces.

Charlie’s painting helped us make the jump from prairie to underwater world. He brought the sharks and clams and swimming creatures alive in a part of America that most folks associate with buffalo grass and tumbleweeds.

A Charlie Frye painting of the Lost Sea. — The Lost Sea was warm and shallow. Here, a school of baculites, the carrot-looking creatures, swims past clams and the toothy blue Xiphactinus. In the background, a green-ish plesiosaur. The fossilized remains of these creatures can be found on the Great Plains, especially in Kansas and Montana (Charlie Frye painting)

After Charlie delivered the paintings (on time and budget, thanks Charlie) the paintings were digitized and incorporated in to the TV series.

Charlie put a tremendous effort in to painting these fantastic illustrations. They give the Lost Sea Expedition that hand crafted feel I wanted. I mean, hey, this is a series about a guy (me) traveling across America in a home made wagon. We can’t have cheesy clip art. We need paintings on boards!

And now we’ve got ’em.

Thanks Charlie and Susan of Frye Art Studio.

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