Re: dragon

Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on November 22, 1999 at 02:05:14:

In Reply to: Re: dragon posted by Anon on November 21, 1999 at 16:43:33:

I always start dragons at the head, where the fiddliest work is, and
the eyes are the focus. I probably begin with the eyes, nose and
mouth. (Start at the center, or at least the focus of any pattern,
and work outwards.) Then, I look around for good directions to lay
the arms, claws and do the upper limbs, making sure there is a good
center of interest for the flaming jewel. Then I splay out the mane.
After that, I wind the body and tail whichever way seems to suit the
body part I'm working on.....spiraling or just stretching out.
Somewhere I throw on another leg or two. Then I do the ridge of
plates down the back and double the line at the spine. Anywhere the
dragon seems to be going awry, or where it gets tough to reach the
client, or where it seems aesthetically usefull to drift off, that's
where I start piling on the clouds (or flowers). At that point, I
take a good look and see where there just needs to be more intensity
of line, and I fill in scales, clouds, fire, just to work up density
and all.

One great Asian dragon painter would get wasted on wine, and grind ink
like mad, and throw clouds and fogs of ink about on the paper, then
sleep it off, and fill in the dragon the next day. Or so I was told.
Even if it never happened, it's kind of a cool story.

My daughter used to know signing, but if you'd send me the gif, that
would be really cool! Gwyn might not remember.

Follow-ups:

• Re: dragon Anon 17:11:46 11/22/99 (0)