Yin and Yang Process

Several months ago (all the way back in January it seems) I sketched out the above image during one of my lunch breaks at work. This sketch is just on a piece of copy paper so I knew if I wanted to complete it that I would have to redraw it on a better medium. For the longest time afterwards I had been debating on whether to make a clayboard of it, make a large painting of it or a pencil/marker drawing of it.

In the end I settled on using to image to practice my watercolor skills. I redrew the image on a larger piece of bristol board paper and used pen and ink to go over the pencil lines. After that was good and dry, I applied some frisket spots to the background so that the spots would remain white throughout the painting process.

I then started adding in the base colors with light washes of blue for the background and purple for the bottom dragon as seen in the following pictures.

I then let the painting sit for several months as I moved between other projects so when I came back around to finishing it, I forgot to keep up with taking progress shot photos.

I added a few more layers of watercolor to build some texture, using greens and blues on the top dragon and darker shades of purple on the bottom dragon. Watercolor is still a relatively untested media for me so I turned to markers and some colored pencil to further define the details of the two dragons and continued building upon the layers until I was satisfied with the outcome.

There was one point in time that I had my three year old neice sitting up with me at my art desk and she was playing with my markers on a separate piece of paper. She was being very good about keeping her scribbles to that paper only, but eventually she made a motion for this piece and left a small auqamarine mark next to the top dragon's tail. Luckily for me the tail had not been colored yet so I was able to cover up most of it. Needless to say, I learned my lesson on leaving such things within reach of the little ones.

See a full view of the picture in my portfolio on DarkGryph Studios.

An Introduction to Musings Aerie

Musings Aerie is a blog I've created with the thought of keeping a written journal of sorts of my artwork and its process. I hope that I can learn from the experience and continue to grow as an artist and as a person.

I'll start this journal off with an introduction. My name is Amy Hardin, I'm a resident of Glendale, AZ and have been for the majority of my life. I've been drawing practically since I could hold a pencil and have expanded on my knowledge throughout the years. I'm currently working a full time job as a records specialist in a lawfirm and am not taking college classes of any sort. My styles and techiniques are pretty much self taught, not really having the time or the money to go for an art degree.

I like to draw with traditional media, mostly colored pencils, markers and recently watercolor. My favorite things to draw are fantasy creatures and wildlife with an affinity to drawing gryphons, dragons and birds. My dream is to one day become a freelance illustrator who makes enough money to live off of. I'm not sure if or when such a thing would be possible to achieve, but I'm going to do all I can to enjoy the time it's going to take to get there.

You can also find me at the following links:

DG-Studios on Deviant Art
DarkGryphStudios Fantasy and Wildlife Art of Amy R. Hardin