Dragon Attack!: From Digital to Beadwork (featuring step-by-step views)

April, 2020 — With the library where I work on lockdown for six weeks, I spent a whole lot of time at home from the second half of March to the end of April. I did some furniture rearranging that I'd wanted to do for a while, went on a lot of walks around the neighborhood, and spent way more time than was healthy looking at covid news. It was not a good time for my anxiety levels, and I found it impossible to write anything during that period.

But while my writing didn't do so great, my art thrived. I was able to return to a beaded "painting" I'd put aside and finally finish it. Begun in February and March 2018, I'd come very close to finishing it then but, disappointed with the result, I'd abandoned it and put it in storage. It wasn't until lockdown when I realized I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it to improve it.

Here's the final result:

And here's how I got there:

STEP-BY-STEP: PHASE 1

Let me start with giving credit and gratitude to this digital painting I found online. I can no longer remember who the artist is. I had no experience drawing dragons, but I knew I wanted to do one. I was greatly influenced by this piece, as you can see. The original artist's dragon design and pose can still be seen very clearly in my artwork's final form.

Next, came a digital creation of my own. I hadn't planned from the start to create a beaded painting; the idea at the beginning was to do the digital painting and that was it. It started with a rough drawing in a sketchbook.

Then a recreation of the drawing in Photoshop.

Then a printout and more sketching to fill in the negative space around the dragon.

Then recreating the sketch and making changes as I saw fit in Photoshop.

Then expanding the background to fill as much negative space as possible.

I had my digital dragon design! Fully customizable to turn into a coloring page or keep as a black and white poster, which was what I'd wanted. Woohoo!

STEP-BY-STEP: PHASE 2

The digital art was done in 2015 and 2016. The beaded version came about in 2018 and 2020.

With a printout of one of the digital versions as a reference, I set about making the beaded "painting."

It was my first large-scale beaded painting. I'd learn from this experience that it would be better to glue the "image" directly onto a hard surface. But for the dragon project, I used lots and lots of invisible tape with the sticky-side facing up. I'd cut pieces of the wire and shape it into one "contour line" after another, and then I'd stick the wire to the tape. I'd fill in the spaces between the wire with size 10/0 or size 11/0 glass seed beads and pour Mod Podge Dimensional Magic on top of the beads, sealing it all in.

It was starting to come along. I was nearly done, and soon, I could fit it in a frame.

But I was also starting to really dislike all the white space around the flames. I thought about adding another layer of elements on top, like more buildings on fire. I made a rough sketch and started making the beaded versions of the buildings.

But, I wasn't happy with that, either. And that's where I put a halt to the project and left it in storage for two years.

STEP-BY-STEP: PHASE 3

I decided I'd add a second layer of flames. And that's exactly what I did.

The work took weeks at each phase of the journey. Mod Podge dries slowly, so each new addition has to be done a small bit at a time.

My only lasting regret is that I used white beads instead of black for the outer background. But there's no pleasing everyone, especially yourself.