When I think of dragons, I think of old-time fables of knights slaying them. Dragons were fire breathing and giant beasts of evil. Seen by many Untamed creatures of chaos. But they were also supernatural, powerful, and very wise.
To think of a being so mighty and at the same time, terrifying has brought me fascination. I've always enjoyed mythological creatures. Even though dragons are make-believe does not stop me from relating the dragon to a metaphor.
Many obstacles of life I see coming from a place of fear. After all most humans are stopped by the things that scare them the most. And in facing your deepest fear, whatever that may look like do we truly release it.
I started painting this dragon from an outline drawing with chalk. I already knew I wanted a fairy to be shining her light on the dragon. Everything was created in my mind. The initial idea came from my mother and I loved the idea of a dragon flying with a fairy.
The specific colors and expressions of the dragon came from the memory of these tiny glass dragons that my grandmother collected.
I kept chalk sketching until I found the look I was pleased with.
Using acrylic paint, I kept building colors up one after another, layer after layer. I created many dragon scales and added colors to brighten areas of the face. I kept the fairy in a silhouette because I wanted the scene to be mostly about the dragon and the effect the fairy had on him.
Some of my favorite parts of this painting was adding highlights around the dragons face. For me, adding highlights brings the whole thing together, makes it feel more dimension. My perspective was meant to show the dragon flying at an angle. Almost as if he turned belly up to embrace the fairy. The dragon outshines the fairy in all his personality.
The humble dragon story
He humbled himself in the presence of fate. I painted this dragon and fairy as a gift for my mother but my grandmother had a lot to do with it. I loved my grammy very much. She always had so many strange things in her house that she collected. I spent a lot of time convincing her she had too much stuff. I would spend the night there and watch lifetime that she taped on VHS. She would let her cats drink from her water glass. One time she thought she would try to scare us all by crawling on the floor but then she couldn’t get back up. Of course, we laughed and laughed. It was never a dull moment. One of my biggest regrets in life is not being there when she passed away. It seemed like years before I could even talk about her without crying. The only thing I wanted from my Grammy's house were these glass dragons she collected. They were cute and full of personality and color. I created this dragon as I thought of these figures. I always think of my grammy and have faith she sees my paintings.
Sometimes when we finally face up to fear, it was never as scary as we imagined. Either way, there is a relief. Even a dragon can be humbled.
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