North American Dragon

Edward A. Obermeyer©1/14/2010

23" X 29", Acrylic on Illustration Board

After seeing Avatar, I was so excited I had to go home and paint a dragon myself! I did a lot of research on line to prepare for a mythology unit for my sculpture class and will be starting with several projects that are going to be dragon based on research my students do in the library and on the web. For this piece, I chose to go back to my airbrush expertise, which I have not used in some time, to get a more illustrative feel for the beast. After the initial contour drawing in HB pencil, I placed frisket film over the entire drawing and cut out every line with an X-acto knife. The sky was exposed first and I did freehand clouds with variations of pthalocyanine blue. For the foreground and background areas, I chose to use a photograph I had taken in Australia of the Blue Mountains. I will never forget the fear in our eyes when we saw the steep drop off below and virtually no fences or guard rails to keep you from going over the edge! That seemed like an appropriate setting for my North American Dragon. The one in the distance is another variety entirely. Rather than focus on the wings, I decided to focus on the emotions of the face after seeing dragons by Douglas Carrel whose images are licensed by The Templar Company Limited. The foreground and background were hand painted with acrylics using smear and smudge techniques I have developed over the years and splattered with a toothbrush for a realistic rock effect. The scales were meticulously done one at a time, with a light highlight pin line and a deep shadow area. The great thing about mythology is it is all fantasy and you can create your own as you go. Some things about these beasts are based on historical facts, but they vary from place to place all over the world. There are so many categories of dragons out there, that it appears to go to infinity, with limitless possibilities for the artist to pursue. It was a fun piece to make!