Monday, May 18, 2009

The Woman and the Dragon

Around Easter I was part of an art show called "Biblical Proportions". Each participating artist was asked to pick something biblical to depict. I went with the powerful imagery of the Woman and the Dragon from Revelations.

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
Revelations 12:1-3

I've gotten so used to doing all my work digitally as of late and I was beginning to feel REALLY rusty, so I busted out the watercolors. Rusty is an understatement. Here's a bit of the process, warts and all.

Colerase sketch:



Having not worked traditionally in a while, I did a digital study of the colors to figure out my palette and whatnot. I adjusted some of the dragon anatomy while I was in there.




I painfully transferred the line work to watercolor board (I need to figure out a better way to do this) and started laying in some of the yellows and reds.




Little by little it started to come together. I did some of the finishing touches with acrylic.




Here's a High Rez version.

All in all, it felt really good to do a finished color piece in traditional medium. Hopefully I can get around to doing these more often. There were a lot of talented cats at the show. Check them out here.

3 comments:

PixelFish said...

I've been feeling like I want to return to traditional media too. (Well, I wouldn't forsake the digital, but I just miss the old tactile sensations of working old skool.)

Nice job on this piece.

Paul Adam said...

Thanks, Lis!

Samuel Pérez Gutiérrez said...

I draw and use watercolours as a hobby sometimes, and I've thought of this image before. I wanted to give it a try but I never felt able to approach it. Anyway, I've seen other versions of "The woman and the dragon", most of them old, and most of them disappointed me, I imagined the distribution of the horns just as you painted it. I had a simetrical vision of this scene as well, but with the heads under the woman. Anyway, great job. This is the closest thing I've found to what I imagined when I heared those words. Also, I love the technique (watercolours are still wild to me).