And Then the Dragons Arrived

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a village in possession of a great fortune is destined to attract unwanted pests. Valcryon  was one such village. Though, in truth, it had long outgrown the moniker of 'village' to become a thriving city-state. It was thought by some to retain the title as a reminder of its humble origins, while others theorized it was more a matter of tricky than of humility. That, perhaps, if they did not boast of their great wealth they could avoid the fate that accompanied it. Regardless of where the truth lay in actuality, it was a clever ruse that served them well as they continued to amass riches beyond imagination - gold, jewels, and magical objects, the vast vaults of Valcryon had them all, yet always found room for just a little more. It had worked for centuries,..... and then the dragons arrived."

It's finally finished!! I started this painting last May, but set it aside when I ran into a part I wasn't certain how to do. So, rather than continue to mess about with it and possibly ruin the work I'd already done, I took a break to work on other projects. I finished it yesterday after deciding on Monday it was time to get back at it.

At the start of this painting, I had absolutely no concept in mind of what I was going to do. I simply picked a canvas colour (black) and decided on what colours I wanted to work with (in this case orange and red tones), scribbled all over the canvas with them, and then started using a blender brush to mix them together to see what I'd get. It was a method I'd read about in "Secrets of Corel Painter Experts" by Daryl Wise and Linda Hellfritsch where one of the artists talked about how he never planned a project before he started painting. He'd just pick a canvas size (sometimes splitting it into multiple paintings on the same canvas that he'd work on at the same time), pick a back ground colour and his colour palette, and just start painting and would just keep painting and blending until he started to see forms of what it 'could be' and would start refining it from there. It's the same method I used for my Little Red Riding Hood painting, and, since it worked then, I tried it again. 

With the colours I chose, it actually didn't take very long before I had an idea. My first thought was 'I see fire' (which became the working title of the piece; fitting considering it turned into a painting of dragons and 'I See Fire' is also the title of a song from the movie The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug). At first, it was going to be a forest on fire, but then the forest became the sort of Viking-ish village you see in the final version. I then needed a reason it was burning, and, what better cause than dragons? This then lead to having someone that you can only partially see trying to fight off the dragons, and, that, is where I go stuck. I was originally going to paint in a longbow, but I could get the angle right. Also, the way I'd wanted to have it cutting across the screen as it, you the viewer, were the one holding the bow wasn't going to work as it was much too large in proportion to the buildings. It was only this week I decided to change the bow to a crossbow and that simple change made a huge difference!

My earlier dragons were rather small and difficult to see in the background, so I added just the tail of one much closer up along more fire and people running away, and, tada! It's finished at long last!

All through painting it, I knew I wasn't going to keep the working title, but didn't know what to change it to once it was finished. In the end, I have the silly Facebook games from the fairytale groups I'm in to thank for it!! In those groups, we love to play the 'ruin a book/movie title' games and one that has come up a couple of times is ruining either the title of a book/movie or the opening line of a book by adding 'and then the dragons arrived.' It was the perfect title for this piece!

Prints are available on ArtStation after this post goes public. New merch for both RedBubble and the Patron Perks area of my author website are also available!