There Will Be Dragons!
Updated: May 7, 2024
It was so much fun making "Monsoon Dragons." I really pulled out the mixed media stops on this piece.
The large dragonfly's body is mat-board covered with origami paper. Details were added with colored pencil and gel pen.
The wings are supported by plastic cut from a takeout container that I layered with iridescent film wrapping from a bouquet of flowers and several coats of matte medium. Color was added with watercolor pencils and details were drawn with sepia Micron pen. I love the way they catch the light at different angles! Click the arrow on the image below to see the change.
The background and the rain includes origami paper, recycled wrapping paper, fancy mulberry papers, several types of plain paper I painted with acrylics, scrap-booking paper embedded with iridescent flakes, and even some recycled dryer sheet.
The cloud is made from a polymer clay cane. Canes are logs of clay with a design running its whole length. Slices from canes are most often used to make repeating patterns or exact duplicates of the same design. In my cloud I used a design known as a chrysanthemum cane and distorted the slices a lot for a more natural look.
The clay sheet resulting from overlapping and flattening the distorted cane slices was coated with transparent watercolor medium and highlighted with colored pencil to add depth.
I'm delighted that the piece has been selected for the upcoming exhibit at Tohono Chul Park - The Exotic Sublime: On a Wing. The opening reception is November 16, 2023, 5:30 - 8 p.m. The exhibit runs through February 5, 2024.
To my surprise, even some people who have lived here many years don’t realize that there are dragonflies in the desert. In fact there are nearly 150 species in Arizona including damselflies. I tend to think of these delicate creatures as appearing almost magically as a gift of the monsoon season. They are most numerous in warmer months but they can be found near both still and running water almost any time of year. Up close they look somewhat prehistoric and indeed they have been around some 250 million years.