Wait! Before you start smirking, we’ve already established in a previous post that I am behind schedule with my “Happy New Year” cards and I have decided to view the entire year as my deadline. Mainly because this is a yearly project I enjoy and I want to do it AND do it right, while having fun. But, also because I am kinda stubborn and I don’t want to quit once I get started.

For some reason, this project seems to be fighting back a little. Maybe it’s because ”dragons prefer to live by their own rules”.  According to my research ”others are attracted to Dragons, especially their colorful personalities, but deep down, Dragons prefer to be alone.”

I’ll post later about the progress of  catching a dragon by the tail, meanwhile, here are some mood boards I put together from my favorite images collected as I brainstormed on what I’d like this year’s card design to reflect.

(Follow the image links to Flicker for image source info. Flickr set here. Related  post with in-progress sketches here.)

Many of the images I found of Dragons are playful and full of movement. This is a detail from the The Nine Dragon Screen in the Forbidden City, Beijing.

I fell in love so much with the imaginative children’s art  I found honoring the Year of the Dragon. The personality and adventurousness of this work, along with the the way these young artists found the essence of  ”dragon”, is inspiring. These pieces also reflect much of the “nature” of Dragons in Chinese lore in neat ways.

Aren’t these patterns and textures beautiful! The colors are amazing.  I loved the joy in those lines and colors. I loved how they also mirror the amazingly detailed patterns, graphic shapes and rich textures found in many of the other, more historical Dragon images I found.

With so much to work from, it’s no surprise that this design is taking on a life of it’s own. More in-progress posts, soon!

It’s amazing how many ideas can be pulled from your recycling bin. My mind is abuzz.

Worked on my assigned letter for a group SEED project today. Here are a few pictures of the process. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out, can’t wait to see how all the different artist letters fit together.

After the first step – tracing the letter shape and painting a free-hand pattern in orange on the patterned fabric.This is one of my favorite reclaimed bed sheet patterns and I’m almost out of it. It will be hard to part with even this little scrap of it.

A second layer of painted pattern, this time in magenta. And the first layer of quilting.

More stitching and quilting…

The finished letter, ready to join its friends.

Winter sunlight streaming through the windows and some bright yellow flowers to catch its beams. It was a nice Monday, in spite of the hectic and the profane.

Stealing some time to work on my Year of the Dragon card design, today. Sharing a few shots of sketching, in progress. If you’d like, you can see even more in the flickr set here. I’ll post more on this project as it moves along. Thinking of doing a companion tea towel, I think this dragon would look cool romping in the kitchen.

January has been uncharacteristically busy. I’m working on my New Years card (Now pretty late, I know- but hey! I have a whole year to celebrate, so it’s ok. It’s ok. … It’s ok.) and some design work that I’ll post about later, among other things like taxes (Ick) and an installation piece for the Piedmont Opera’s production of The Crucible that’s gonna be pretty cool, if we can pull it off. For now, check out these skulls! Part of an in-progress collaborative project with Patrick Harris and the glitter diva Millcent Greason-Spivak that’s a spin off of these cool guys  for the Art-O-Mat (Working title: Artichoke Hearts and Black Roses). Stay tuned for more.

Today, we are striking against censorship

Join the largest online protest in history: tell Congress to stop this bill now!

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