I don’t always know the source of inspiration for my art. My most current piece is a good example. For months now, I’ve been seeing a Chinese dragon in my mind, and I have no idea why. I’m not particularly fond of Chinese dragons. They look too much like snakes–how can they be a dragon? The dragons I drew growing up were more the kind that knights in shining armor slayed, or that lurked in the Misty Mountains on Bilbo’s adventure in The Hobbit.
Still, I kept seeing a Chinese dragon. So I drew one with black ink, then colored it in with acrylic paints and colored pencils. You can’t see it with the scanned-in image, but the dragon’s body was done with pearlescent acrylics. If the light hits it just right, the paint shines.
While I was working on this piece, I watched my DVD of The Neverending Story, and perhaps I know where my dragon came from. One of the characters in the movie is a Luck Dragon named Falcor. You can see him in this clip:
I’m not entirely sure Falcor explains my Chinese Dragon, though. I always thought Falcor was an odd character and didn’t find him nearly as awesome as I think he was meant to be. Maybe the artistic part of my brain simply wanted to work on something colorful and imaginative, and that’s all the explanation required.
