Tears of the Dragon

Tears of the Dragon

IT is the Beast, the dragon, the struggle, the gods, the obstacle we must conquer.
She is the Maiden, the virtuous, the lover, the sacrifice, the coveted, the romance, Andromeda, that which must be saved or protected.
He is the Warrior, the King, the Everyman, Lancelot, Sigfreid, Perseus, Beowulf, Arthur.

I put a lot of visual metaphor in this – a subject I rarely tackle, and would still argue I don’t tackle well. But as I wanted to convey ‘Classical’ themes to escort my classic nude, her tormentor, and her would-be savior, it seemed I had to pull out all the stops. As it is, this went through 3 compositions before I finally ended up with this, and before this they were all horizontal and simply not working. I knew that I wanted to pay homage to Gustav Dore’ (or at least learn from his style), so that meant oodles of detail and shade and form. I also knew that I wanted the three subjects, and I built from there. Here, as in much mythology, the pillar to which she is bound is phallic, the sea-foam and spray is representative of the semen of gods, the maelstrom is the Final Battle, etc, etc. In the end this is once more one of those pieces that I spent so much time and effort on over so long that I’m really going to have to step back a time to decide whether or not I accomplished what I set out to do…

9x12 (cropped), Pen & Ink (Micron) on Strathmore 400. 15, 20, 25 hours, I really don’t know…

The gorgeous model I referenced is Carly, as magnificently shot by Mjranum, and used with his permission. [link]

The Knight was referenced from Armor by Cobweb_stock [link]

I researched the crashing waves and clouds as best I could online and staring at Dore’s art, and the pillar is a rock formation from a shot I took in the WI Dells, like this: [link] .




A 'Clean' Version of this appeared in Abandoned Towers Magazine 4: [link]