Fleisher faculty member Jason Poole is proof that art can take you anywhere. Inspired by days spent fossil hunting with his father and the dinosaur motifs featured in late-1970s and early-1980’s Marvel comics, Jason’s affinity for drawing dinosaurs led him to volunteer at the Academy of Natural Sciences over 20 years ago.

Now, Jason manages the academy’s dinosaur hall and fossil preparation lab, and his paleontological artworks have been featured in numerous scholarly publications. His work has also taken him to digs in Egypt and Patagonia, where he was part of a team that unearthed Dreadnoughtus schrani. Published last September, the titanosaur is believed to be one of the largest of all known terrestrial vertebrates at 85 feet long and weighing over 130,000 pounds.

Jason began teaching at Fleisher four years ago and his popular Sketching Live Animals workshop – which features his beloved Russian Tortoise, Sputnik – has been a staple of Fleisher’s adult class offerings. Last year, Jason introduced Dinosaur Drawing as a workshop and challenged students to work from a new form of still life: the nearly 30 species of dinosaurs featured in the Academy’s Dinosaur Hall. Learn more about Dreadnoughtus or read a feature Tom Avril of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about the Dinosaur Drawing workshop.