Mel's Dragon in the Gallery

[Irish]

Mel,

I am posting my reply to your PM as a thread. First and foremost I believe that your dragon is excellently done and that others on the forum will love to see him. The Carver's Gallery is a great place to post but too often that area of the site doesn't get checked when we slip into the forum to see what's happening ... at least I don't. Second ... well ... the dragon is too good to just say a few words that would have fit into a PM ... Sorry! I just had too many Ohs and Ahs to share with you.

The carving work is great! The turn back in the neck spines works wonderfully and I like the way that you have the jaw spines rolling with the inside of the neck. He has a nice shadowing from the depth in that area. The end of the jaw spine makes a nice little accent to the inside open space between his head and neck - there is just enough change in the line inside that area to pull my eye there! Little changes in a trapped air space area as the one you created with the jaw spine are so important. Big changes your eye notices then forgets but little one keep pulling you back to 'recheck' ... they're sort of teasers to the eye. That is a very nice teaser!

You've tucked the top of the neck under wonderfully where it meets the back of the skull. The eye is well set with a strong upper lid ... the eyes of any facial carving are so important and your's really work. You have the boney eye socket well above the face with the eye ball nicely rolled and tucked deeper than the surrounding skin structure.

You have kept the curve of the neck spine flowing into the top of the head so that the line created by the skull behind the eye flows right into the spines of the neck and pull you through the curve of the neck.

My favorite area, the one place that I keep going back to is the muzzle and jaw line. That area has so much dimension to it. Your muzzle just rolls right down under the top of the nose then that nose pulls right back up, over and into the lip. Nice Job! The jaw is so strong and lays well over the neck area. For me that is the best part of the carving!

The texturing really works to hold the head and neck together ... especially the added (deeper?) texturing at the bottom of the neck and along the top of the muzzle into the nose!

Now ... I am comparing the carving to the Flexcut knife in the foreground so it looks like you worked on a 3/4" board ... Mel, that's a lot of dimension to have packed into such a shallow board. I'm impressed!

Because of the painting the texturing and spine fan are really strong. Did you stain the texture areas or dry brush in the added colors? There is enough of the rust tones in the neck to hold to the rust spines. That's a nice use of one color uniting several areas.

Now. perhaps it is because your carving is resting on your work bench which is the same accent color of rust but to my eye the white teeth and green eye jump out at me. Again, this could be because of that red toned work bench. I might have a totally different feeling if you had photographed him on a white background. If it were my work I think I would tone the teeth and horns down a bit with some yellow ochre toned shading. Just a touch of shadow on the teeth where they go into the jaw line and a bit at the base of the horns. You might even added a real light touch of rust over that ochre tone. Perhaps you have a pet dog or cat ... look at their teeth and see that usually they are a little more towards the yellow brown toning than pure white.

I really like that you chose green for the eye; green, brown and rust are an excellent color combination. I would love to see just a touch of that green somewhere else in him Maybe just a real thin shading coat under the eye or around the nose area somewhere ro maybe just a very little bit down at the bottom of the neck next to the spines. You have used the brown twice for the skin and between the spines, the rust twice in the neck and jaw spines and the white twice for the teeth and horns ... but there is only one area of green. I like the green and would like, as the viewer of the work, to see just a tad bit more of it

Beautiful job Mel! You did really good on this one!!! Talking Talking Talking

Now ... I would also love to see that little cookie angle that you tucked into the photo above the dragon! Maybe you could get a close up of her and maybe a close up of that dragon's muzzle and nose area.

Susan


http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.co...8&limit=recent

[Ron Davidson]

Susan- I checked out the dragon in the gallery and it looks great. Mel you did a fantistic job on the detail. I also am bad about not checking the gallery when I come online to see what's happening. But I will try harder.

Susan- Thanks for bringing it to everyones attention. Ron

[Thor]

Great dragon! Are you using acrylic paints for such color in the eye?
Thor

[Mottles]

Hand Waving--Hi Mel:
Your work on the dragon is just really, really excellent work and Susan said it all.
Visiting the Gallery isn't something I do either everytime I visit WCI and so I know I miss a lot of really nice work. So please post your work to a thread within the forums too then no one misses out on seeing your excellent work.
I just not to long ago realized there was a 'Carver Galleries' but will certainly try to visit more often.
Kathy

[MelNM]

Thanks folks for your kind words, it was done on a 3/4 inch basswood, Susan you sure don't miss much. Thor I did use acrylic washes on it, but part of it is bare wood like the spines on th scales. I like to have wood show on some of my carvings because I thought this would look better.

It took me a while to do and since this was one of Susan's patterns I really valued and appreciated her opinion on it. Without books like Susan's I would never progress as a carver. Relief carving is something I really want to be my main focus when I carve, but to me it is one of the harder types of woodcarving to learn.

Here is the dragon and a Sun carving that I did also. Susan my daughter ran off with the angel already so I couldn't post it. She is a pretty good artist and I was wanting to see what she could to do with it. Hopefully in the future we can collaborate on more carvings.
Thanks again guys

[squbrigg]

Great Dragon Mel! Love the effects of the paint, highlighting the various important areas. Great eyes! Keep up the great work.

Bob

[Callynne]

Great job, Mel, on the dragon, little sun and Angel....I was hoping to see a close up of her also! I gather from what you said, though, that we may see her again, painted by your daughter?! I'll look forward to that! Again, great job, thanks for sharing! Callynne

[Ashbys]

Nice Dragon Mel ! I like the colors and the detail.

Ash