Plasticine Prehistoric - Prints
Art that earns its wall space.
Some prints hang quietly and look beautiful. These prints start conversations, make waiting rooms more bearable, and occasionally cause a pediatric patient to forget, for a moment, that they're nervous.
About These Prints
Every Plasticine Prehistoric print is made by me, in my studio, on a professional Epson 9900 large format printer using UltraChrome HDR pigment inks. This is the same class of equipment used by fine art print studios and museum reproduction departments. I make every decision about color, density, and output - the print is a continuation of the creative work, not a production step handed off to someone else.
Prints are produced on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, a 308gsm 100% cotton rag paper that appears in museum and gallery collections worldwide. Each print is made to order, hand-inspected, and signed before it ships.
Archival pigment inks and fine art paper ensure color stability and longevity exceeding 100 years under proper display conditions - which feels like a reasonable standard for creatures that already survived one extinction event.
Who Hangs These on Their Walls
Scientists, researchers, and science educators tend to appreciate the layered joke - especially the comet image, which lands differently when you understand the full weight of what the dinosaurs are looking at. These prints work equally well in faculty offices, research labs, and classrooms from elementary school through graduate level. The humor is accessible to an eight-year-old and still funny to a paleontologist.
Pediatric physicians, dentists, and child life specialists know that the right image on an exam room wall can genuinely change the energy of an appointment. Something that makes a child point and say "look at that one" gives both the child and the clinician a moment to breathe. These prints are professionally produced and appropriately serious in their craft, even when the subject matter is not.
Veterinarians and veterinary clinics - there's a particular satisfaction in knowing that birds are living dinosaurs, and that the animals you care for every day are the direct descendants of the creatures in these images. That's either deeply meaningful or deeply funny, and probably both.
Gift buyers looking for something specific, personal, and genuinely different. These work for the scientist who has everything, the physician furnishing a new office, the teacher who has spent twenty years explaining the Cretaceous extinction, or anyone who takes their sense of humor as seriously as their work.
Creative professionals and designers who understand that a workspace reflects who you are, and who want something on their wall that signals both aesthetic sensibility and a refusal to take everything too seriously.
Pricing
5x7 - $45 8x10 - $85 11x14 - $175 16x20 - $295 20x30 - $495 (select images, contact me to discuss)
About the Series
Plasticine Prehistoric grew out of a creative philosophy I've held since my years teaching photography: play is not a break from serious work. It is serious work. When a project stalls or the thinking gets stuck, the most productive thing you can do is set it down and go make something completely ridiculous. Your subconscious keeps processing. The block loosens. You come back with fresh eyes.
These images are the result of that kind of thinking - photographed with the same lighting equipment, the same technical precision, and the same compositional standards I bring to everything else I do. The subjects just happen to be $3 toy dinosaurs with opinions about their circumstances.
I hold an MFA from Academy of Art University and maintain the Certified Professional Photographer designation through Professional Photographers of America. My work appears in the TMC Foundation's permanent Healing Arts collection in Tucson, Arizona. I've been making photographs professionally since 2006.
None of that stops the dinosaurs from being funny. It just means the prints will outlast all of us.
Collecting Information
Prints ship flat in protective packaging with insurance. Local Tucson-area delivery available for larger prints.
Display away from direct sunlight and high humidity. Frame under UV-protective glass or acrylic for maximum longevity.
Questions about specific images, custom sizing, framing, or bulk orders for clinical or institutional spaces? I'm here to help.
Hugs
A blooming hedgehog cactus photographed in the Catalina Foothills, its pink flowers extending outward in an unmistakable gesture of embrace. The irony is perfect—a plant armed with defensive spines offering what appears to be an open-armed hug. Sometimes Tucson's desert humor writes itself.
Archival Specifications
Medium: Pigment-based archival Giclée print
Paper: Exhibition-grade Lustre (High Gamut)
Size: 5 × 5 inches
Longevity: Rated for 100+ years of lightfastness when properly displayed
Edition: Open edition; each print is hand-inspected and signed by Michael Kloth
Production & Delivery
Each print is custom made and professionally produced in Tucson, Arizona to museum standards. Standard production time is 2-4 weeks. Rush processing available for urgent projects—please inquire for expedited options and pricing.
Artist's Narrative: Desert Absurdity
This image doesn't pretend to be serious landscape photography—it's celebrating the absurd beauty of Tucson's plant life and the universal need for connection, even when you're covered in defensive spines. I found this hedgehog cactus blooming in the Catalina Foothills during spring, and the flower arrangement was too anthropomorphic to ignore. The "arms-outstretched" gesture combined with the cactus font spelling "HUGS" creates exactly the kind of desert humor that defines Tucson's character. Sometimes photography should make you smile rather than contemplate the sublime. This hedgehog cactus certainly delivered.
Perfect For
Moving-away gifts ("I'll miss you" but make it prickly), thank-you cards with Tucson flavor, desk conversation starters, care packages sending desert love to distant friends, or tagging someone who needs a hug (prickly or otherwise). Anyone who appreciates desert humor, Tucson culture, or the irony of a cactus offering embraces.
Also Available as Magnets
Bring prickly hugs to your refrigerator in three magnet sizes:
Rectangular (2 × 3 inches) — $8
Square (3 inches) — $10
Round (3 inches) — $8
Contact for Custom Sizing