Fire-Breathing Dragon Fruit

In 2013, I shot a series of many photos of one of my favorite things in the world: dragon fruit! The texture, the ornate & colorful uniqueness of each one, the translucency, all just very appealing, not to mention very fun to paint! Usually, the challenge of the Happy Hour series is more work than fun, and the process is only drudgery toward the outcome. More times than I can count, I find myself mumbling something about what the hell was I thinking getting myself into THIS mess?!? While it always comes out OK, it's nice to paint something fun! It's been a while...

I am not really one to post works-in-progress, but I've been told that people like to see where it came from, not just where it ends up, so here is Dragon Shadows, work-in-progress. I'm happy with where this one is going! Its companion piece, Dragon Roses, won me Best of Show in the 2017 New Mexico Watercolor Society's Spring Show in Las Cruces! I was shocked since the painting was kind of a what-do-I-paint-now throw-together (see Dragon Roses on my Art Walk under Gallery). The source photos had been lying dormant for three years. I don't know about other artists, and this may be news to any non-artists, but sometimes ideas need to marinate for some time before they come to fruition. My record may be 20 years! I know I'm not alone in saying that I have tens of thousands of source photos just in my computer alone! Before we moved, I had a case that held a stack of twelve shoebox-sized photo boxes that were full-to-bursting! I winnowed that lot down to three boxes, just the outstanding photos and family stuff. I have more ideas than I can ever produce, although I probably have enough art supplies to do them all...

We will see where Dragon Shadows ends up, but for right now, holed-up and hiding from this coronavirus mess, I'm making use of the time and enjoying the process! Stay creative!