SF&F Picture 62 out of 69 by Rachael Mayo.

SciFi and Fantasy Art: Song in the Sky

This is a big trade piece I did for Sandra San Tara. I've been working on it off and on sine February 2006 and I finally finished it in mid-September. Hurrah!

This is one of those pieces where I really wish I'd come up with a story for it, but never could get one to gel. The piece itself is more about color and motion, a phoenix who isn't on fire, and dragons with butterfly wings and sea-critter body patterns.

Symbolically, I suppose I can say that anything with feathery wings represents a kind of freedom of thought and movement, despite the whole phoenix-as-symbol-for-rebirth idea. In this specific case, it's a just a fantastic, intelligent bird who soars with the dragons that inhabit my dreams. They interweave the threnodies of their voices - a marvelous harmony that combines the clarion call of the trumpet and the mellow, liquid tones of the cello and viola, backed by the deep, throbing bass of the clear and echoing sky.

There you go, that's about as far as I got in terms of "what it's all about."

Technical stuff: I accomplished this in my ususal way with a pencil drawing, a watercolor underpainting, and Prismacolor pencil overlays for all that detail. The piece is about 9x30 inches in size and took me between 50 and 60 hours to draw, paint and color over the course of seven months. I'll hand it over to Sandra at Archon this October.

Detail of the Top Dragon
Detail of the Phoenix
Detail of the Bottom Dragon


	Categories: [Dragons, Drakes, Wyverns, etc] [Mythical Creatures & Assorted Monsters] Techniques: [Coloured Pencils] [Watercolour]

Date	Name	Comment
23 Sep 2006	Tabitha General_Wyvern Ruf	Loading... Love the colour patters. The actions are very dynamic. The foci look as if they are moving.
23 Sep 2006	Kristin A. Erickson	Loading... The colors are beautiful and I love the designs and details.
23 Sep 2006	Alexandra Dubeau	Loading... The colors on this are gorgeous!! I love the style and pose of all three too. It really does look like a song in the sky!! Well done and congrats on the Mods choice!
24 Sep 2006	Henna Pardo	Loading... Congratulations on Mod's choice!!!!!!!11 You deserve it, I love it. Keep up the good work!!!!!
24 Sep 2006	Lindsey ´Esther/Miyako´ Pastorek	Loading... ~sasukedragon WOW! NICE DETAIL! i don't have the patience to do detail like that (T_T) very nice!
24 Sep 2006	A violist	Loading... Wow! this picture is absolutely spectacular! violas rule!!!!!!!!!!!!
24 Sep 2006	Lori Crow	Loading... Absolutely beautiful!
24 Sep 2006	Anonymous	Loading... Love it! ^__^
24 Sep 2006	Arwin Faber	Loading... I simply adore that top dragon. It has such great motion and colourscheme. I hope the artwork you got in return was just as breathtaking
19 Mar 2008	Natalie Beth Myers	Loading... i think the other one was more beautiful, but this one is also great!
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'Song in the Sky'

SciFi and Fantasy Art: Song in the Sky