New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m trying to come up with different Dragon designs. This was today’s idea. Batwing ears, crocodile type skin and scales, smoke gently streams from its mouth. I’m not sure how large it is? It could be two feet long or twenty meters! I’m pleased with it.
I’m trying to collate all my dragon images for my college project. I keep finding them in different files and places. I need too take good photos of my art so that I can produce good quality images for it. I was trying to create a middle ages design. More snake like than the more modern style of dragon you can find. Even though they are mythical they seem to evolve! Now I need to do more research into the history of dragons and their symbolic meanings.
Part of my college course is to write a report as part of my final submission. I’m trying to produce something about the historical illustration of Dragons. From China and Japan, to the medieval era including images from medieval bestiaries, and on through time to the present day. But its such a huge subject, with so many branching ideas. When did dragons go from no limbs to four limbs, to four limbs and two wings? How has the depiction of their heads changed? Were they always fire breathing? Are they spirits or ‘real’ physical beings (albeit in a fantasy world). Do they communicate with humans, are they intelligent.
My intention is to identify types and styles of dragons. Describe how they have been depicted and expand my knowledge of the illustrators creating them and their incredible imaginations.
I’m looking at authors like JRR Tolkien, Cressida Cowell, who also illustrated their books and Josh Kidby who illustrated the covers of Terry Pratchetts ‘Discworld’ novels among others.
Doodle of a woman in a bobble hat. Just a finger drawing, flooded with blocks of colour, done whilst listening to an online lecture about a deamon that someone has drawn over and over again.
My doodles are usually cats, nice, friendly creatures (with claws and teeth), but because this was a finger drawing it was easier to do.
Will I remember the lecture when I see this image? Possibly, but have I invested too much time in it so I have switched off my brain to the lecture? No, I don’t think so.
I look up and see two monsters looming over me. They are staring at each other. Air swirls round them. Crystallising ice makes frost sheets over everything. ALIENS!
Created this photo from four mirrored images of sky, cloud, bushes and houses. Then added texture in Photodirector. The images look like huge baby chicks but with added claws waiting to grab you. Ready to pounce and fight with each other. I was interested in the colours of the sky. It gives a feeling that the air is chilled to a minus number.
I’m looking at different amalgamations of animals for my college project and remembered chimaeras. This is a cat dragon idea I came up with.
I did a multiple image drawing by using two pens, then added holographic paper to give it a different feeling and to change its appearance.
Wikipedia gives this definition of modern Chimaeras :
I painted this a few years ago. It’s an octagonal platter shape. I used a few images of willow pattern plates and amalgamated them. It’s mostly based on a Spode style of pattern. The edge design was made up by myself. The painting is meant to look like the platter is leant up against a background. That’s why I added shadows and played with adding a reflection below it. I can’t remember what else I added to it. I did a series of paintings of ceramic objects, there was also a jug and a teapot and a large vase painting. It was good to imagine pottery from my adopted home of Stoke-on-Trent.
A banner for one of our Penkhull Mystery Plays. We hold them most summers and the one this was painted for was about the pottery industry and its history. This banner was based on the willow pattern famous in the potteries. Spode was one of the factories that made plates and pots with this design, but if you Google ‘willow pattern’ you can find lots of images from many manufacturers.
Blue acrylic paint on a canvas cloth. It took me a while to paint. I also painted the local church and methodist Hall as they would have appeared in the late 19th and early 20th century.
I watched a programme about Andy Warhol last night. Even though its a while since he died it stated his Warholian influence is still widespread. It made me think about when I first found out about him. It was when I was at school. The paintings and screen prints of Campbells soup cans and portraits of Marilyn Monroe were the images I first saw. I was learning about Pop Art at the time. When you have just been learning about renaissance artists such as Michelagelo or Botticelli it’s a bit of a shock to see something different. Like the Roy Lichtenstein paintings such as ‘Whaam!’ using bright colours and screen print effects. I think Warhol and these other artists were what got me interested in being playful with art.
They ask
‘what’s on the easle?’.
I say
‘a lot of stuff’
Tissues and a coffee cup
And other sorts of muck
A drawing of a dragon
A pallette and a brush
A green painted canvas
If you really want to look….
I ought to be painting
But there’s been a delay
My minds gone off the boil now
It’s not coming out to play…
One day I’ll get my mojo back
I’ll start to paint again
But till that day my easle
Is a place to rest my brain!
Mallaband-Brown