Rachael Mayo

OMG, your expression cracks me up!

Thank you!

Three versions of Path Between Stars 5. All are still works in progress.

I was at work, in the ops center at the time. We had network monitors that suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree - lots of blinking red. Next thing I know, someone wheels in a TV and we watched the second tower hit. Live.

This is "Champion Floribunda". It is 5x7 inches.

Here's the final version of the fourth project in the Champions series.

The dragon is made with Prismacolor pencils and gel pens over a watercolor underpainting. There are many semiprecious stones and other 3D embellishments.

Here is a set of details from Yantra of Dubious Provenance 2 so that you can see all the lovely eyes.

Prismacolor pencil over an ink drawing.

This is "Yantra of Dubious Provenance 2". It is not a meditation aid, as the geometry is deliberately skewed. And it's made of bones, eyes, teeth, and wings.

I used Prismacolor pencils over ink to make this monstrosity. There are black agates, lapis lazuli, and manmade turquoise stones.

This is "AvP: Dragonslayer". Finally finished after about 75 hours effort (drawing, inking, coloring). Prismacolor pencils over watercolor wash over ink drawing. Love me some monstrous details!

Years ago, a friend wrote an Aliens-themed "Three Little Pigs" fable in which neither piggies nor Big Bad Wolf came off well at the end...

Spot illustrations for Tremorworks Demongate bestiary. Today: Bakeneko, Baku (art director's notes, not historically sourced...), Cerberus, and Chalkydri. Made with Zig and Micron pens on paper.

Lineart done in 2013 for a DeviantArt contest. Mashup of TRON and the Firebird ballet's pas de deux. I colored it later with Prismacolors, then added circuit boards on a lower layer. The glow is a simple Photoshop effect.

Spot illustrations for Tremorworks: Demongate High bestiary, which included angels, demons, and other entities. These are four of the demons. I used Microns to ink them.

#ink #drawing #art #traditional #demon #angel

There is so much color, shape, and style to nudibranchs! Fantastic creatures.

Thank you!

Thank youuuuuu!

I hadn't been consciously thinking about lionfish, but I see the influence now!

A very colorful, highly detailed, and rather psychedelic dragon floats through a misty, vague background. The picture is still a work in progress, in that the dragon will be cut out of the background and placed into a new environment where there will be 3D elements and a layering effect to make the dragon pop out.

This is the dragon design for the fourth in my Champions series. I haven't settled on a title just yet.

Prismacolor pencils and gel pen over watercolor.

Inspired by Mom's orchids and also nudibranchs.

#dragons #traditionalart #drawing

That dragon is beyond cool... I love those crystal wings!

A busy composition has a central figure of a red dragon that has ratlike features. Surrounding it are a variety of 3D embellishments that consist of semiprecious stones, metal beads, and acrylic tiles and rhinestones.

This is "Dragons of Every Dawn: Rat". Yes, I've been busy this week!

#traditionalart #dragon #rat #mixedmedia #coloredpencil

This is a small-format project at 5x7 inches. A brown dragon is packed into the composition. It has finny wings in shades of gold, brown and orange toward the top of the picture. Its body is covered in plate scales like a desert lizard. Along the borders of the piece are a variety of color-coordinated stones such as aragonite, tiger eye, and jasper. Near the dragon's head is spiral ammonite fossil.

Finished version of "Champion Terrani et Vermiculi". Not my usual color palette, and therefore a good challenge.

#traditionalart #traditionalmedia #mixedmedia #dragon #coloredpencil #stones

This is an image of a yellow-green, scaly dragon with serpent overtones. It has frills on its dorsal ridge, hips, ankles, arms, and tail that resemble leaves. It sits in a composition that contains patterned scrapbook papers and numerous semiprecious stones. The stones are green, black, and yellow, and come in several shapes and sizes.

This is "Dragons of Every Dawn: Serpent". It will be one of twelve, all of them dragons based on the Chinese Zodiac.

Colored pencils on paper, plus gel pen and semiprecious stones.

#traditionalart #mixedmedia #coloredpencils #dragon #stones

A dragon is packed into a 5x7 inch format. The dragon has scale/plates that resemble those of certain desert-dwelling lizards. But it also has a lot of fin-like design elements. The wings are rather finny. The tail is definitely finny. The artist was probably thinking of two things at the same time, so it came out as a mashup of desert and ocean. The dragon was colored with Prismacolor pencils over watercolor, and it has detailing in gel pens.

This is the third in my "Champions" series, and is still a work in progress. I'll be assembling a background with 3D embellishments soon.

Colored pencils on paper - among other things.

#art #traditionalart #coloredpencils #mixedmedia #dragon #earthtones

A colorful winged and feathered serpent-dragon is the central image. Its tongue is sticking out, because the artist likes drawing tongues. Its feathers contain all the colors of the rainbow, but don't follow anything like standard avian morphology. Its tail has feathers of different sizes, and the longest of them curl across the bottom third of the picture. In the background are highly stylized leaf and flower shapes. The dragon was colored with Prismacolor pencils, and there are glittery gel pen accents and details. The background is a watercolor wash with salt mottling, and Prismacolor pencil to bring out the detail of the leaves and flowers.

This is "Tapestry of the Vigilant", an image that comes from my "Dragon Adventure 4" coloring book. I've enlarged it to 14x17 so I could really play with the detail.

#coloredpencil #art #traditionalart #traditionalmedia #fantasy #dragon #featheredserpent #quetzalcoatl #colorful

A stipple-shaded dragon floats through space with its wings spread wide. Behind it is a top-view of a spiral galaxy painted with pearly white acrylic.

A stipple-shaded dragon flies through an abstract space. It is surrounded by a black border, which anchors the body parts, which are cut out. Behind the dragon and border layer is an abstracted star field that consists of silver acrylic painted onto black glitter paper. The dragon holds a small opal.

These are "Path Between Stars 3" and "Path Between Stars 4". Stipple shading takes some effort, but I love the end result.

#ink #dragons #space #stars #flght #art #traditionalart #penandink #indiaink #stipple #drawing

A humanoid figure dressed in semi-abstract folds of cloth moves through an abstract mosaic space. The figure is an interpretation of an angel. The figure has three pairs of complicated wings, or winglike forms, and very long, curly hair. The figure holds a sphere that appears translucent. Behind the figure and above it is a conglomeration of wings, petals, leaves, teeth, eyes, and spines - an abstract angel.

This is "Expressions of Light 19", which lineart was completed in 2022. I've added watercolor since then, but haven't gotten around to full color yet. I used Micron pens, then cleanup in Photoshop. ~15x15 inches.

#lineart #angel #wings #ink #fantasyart #art #costume

A complicated knot of a dragon defies the laws of physics as it manages to fly. It has a somewhat oriental face and scales, but has wings that consist of both feathers and membranes. It has a great many more than two wings. Its body weaves in and around itself, with wings popping out at exactly the right place to be useful. The dragon drawing was made with pen and ink then cleaned up with Photoshop. The background is an abstract design gleaned from a mashup of stencils and clipart, and is unique to this piece.

A complex knot of a dragon defies the laws of physics as it flies. The dragon was drawn with pencil, then inked with Micron pens. The whole sheet was given a watercolor underpainting, then colored with Prismacolor pencils and detailed with gel pens. The paper was partly cut away at the edges so that pieces of the dragon's body and wings stick out beyond the edges. The dragon was placed onto a sheet of red glitter paper with foam tape. The dragon holds a fiber optic stone.

This is Dragon Dance 3. The lineart appears in Dragon Adventure 2, and the colored one was just me having fun.

#art #dragons #fantasy #lineart #coloringbook #traditionalmedia

This is a pen and ink drawing of a fantasy arthropod that is designed for swimming. It has features that bring to mind a lobster, a praying mantis, a mantis shrimp, a water beetle, and an ant. It is one of four designs, and it is the smallest of those four. It is about the size of a large dog.

This is a pen and ink drawing of a fantasy arthropod that is designed for swimming. It has features that bring to mind a lobster, a praying mantis, a mantis shrimp, a water beetle, and an ant. It is one of four designs, and it is the smallest of those four. It is about the size of a large dog, but is bigger than the "minor swimmer".

This is a pen and ink drawing of a fantasy arthropod that is designed for swimming. It has features that bring to mind a lobster, a praying mantis, a mantis shrimp, a water beetle, and an ant. It is one of four designs, and it is the smallest of those four. It is about the size of a pony, and would gladly eat one.

This is a pen and ink drawing of a fantasy arthropod that is designed for swimming. It has features that bring to mind a lobster, a praying mantis, a mantis shrimp, a water beetle, and an ant. It is one of four designs, and it is the smallest of those four. It is more massive than a draft horse, and would easily tear holes in any submersible craft.

Bugs bugs bugs bugs. These are 2005 spot illustrations for the miniatures game "Hive, Queen, and Country".

#ink #drawing #traditionalart #shading #crosshatch #Micron #RPG #creaturedesign

A post that reads "You remember #Apple scanning all images on your #mobile device? If you have an #Android #phone, a new app that doesn't appear in your menu has been automatically and silently installed (or soon will be) by #Google. It is called #AndroidSystemSafetyCore and does exactly the same - scan all images on your device as well as all incoming ones (via messaging). The new spin is that it does so "to protect your #privacy". You can uninstall this app safely via System -> Apps."

Putting this here for my fellow Android users.

This is a line drawing of a semi-abstract creature that plays with the "biblically accurate angel" concept. It is an assemblage of fantasy wing-shapes with different kinds of feathers and decorations. There are flame shapes in the background. In the middle of the wings is a set of circular teeth or mandibles. The line drawing is complete, but it wants color. The artist will be adding lots of color later. The drawing was made with Micron pens on paper.

Hot off the drawing table, this is a Strange Angel - a semi-abstract collection of wings and fire. I will be coloring the drawing later; I'll add a bunch of eyes at that point.

I made this with Micron pens on drawing paper. It is 9x12 inches.

#ink #drawing #traditionalart #angel

A green, black, and white phoenix flies through an abstract space. Its feathers are decorated with lines and dots to make it look complex. Acrylic dots surround its head, as if it is exploding with color. Except it's mostly green on blue, because the artist was just in one of those moods that day. The drawing was made with Prismacolor pencils and white and silver gel pens.

Here's another bird! This is "Song in the Sky 6". I've reused this phoenix design several times, because it is relatively simple and lots of fun to color. I used Prismacolor pencils and gel pens. There are acrylic "rain dots", too.

#art #traditionalart #coloredpencils #drawing #phoenix