First Dragon of the Year...

Little Rose Dragon
(Oil, 6x8") Price: $200.00 SOLD

I've been needing to do some small paintings to add to my display at Boskone Art Show next month in Boston. I already had the rocket ideas and such, but I also needed to refamiliarize myself with my paints again...to become confident in spashing about the paint again... As the years go by, I find that it's like riding a bicycle: you never really forget... Anyway, I had some dragon drawing lying around the place from previous projects, so I thought I'd practice on those. Above is this weeks effort: 'Little Rose Dragon'.

Doing this painting in oil has been eating at me for awhile. I had previously executed it in acrylic and prismacolour pencil on Illustration Board - and I'd never been fully happy with it in that medium. That painting had never sold either, for one reason or another. However, I decided to clear the decks by giving the old version to a dear friend for Christmas and promply set up my miniscule easel to re-attempt the painting in oil.



This is the work in progress. The easel is only about 12 inches tall. The best thing about it is that the upright post and foot pieces allow me to upend the painting and do fine detail that I would normally have to be a contortionist to paint. On larger works this is a problem, but I get around it. In this photo, the easel is sitting on my disposable pallete, under my right hand lamp. I use natural colour light globes in my two lamps: it helps smooth out the light and shadow in my small painting corner.

This is the original drawing for 'Rose Dragon', executed on hand tinted drawing paper. In a previous post I told you all about 'Nick Paper'. The pencil is Prismacolour 'Sienna' or 'Red Earth' I think. And of course, no drawing of mine done on 'Nick Paper' is complete without the red Kanji stamp - the symbol is Japanese for 'Ma'.

So, the new 'Little Rose Dragon' painting is done in the same palette and brushes as for 'Escape Velocity' - there's just a difference in emphasis.

Anyway, I'm off to paint something new, so check back again soon...
Cheers,
Marianne