Saturday, July 06, 2019

The foo dog





This was a doublespread, so I took two pictures of it - better than one small one. The foo dog is often an architectural feature decorating the top of the posts at the main gates of (overwrought) Chinese homes. They are called "dogs" but are actually lions, and are often cast in bronze or stone.

This one here, drawn by Philippine illustrator Kerby Rosanes in his book Mythomorphia, is a male one, distinguished by a ball underfoot. If it were female, it would be a cub with her.

I chose this color for the body because this is a bronze one. A burnisher pencil was used to convey the smoothness of the surface.

The curly-cues around the head, tail and face of the lion: I couldn't really figure them out - whether they were clouds or part of the lion. I went with a bronze-y, pale yellow color for them, intending to make these part of the lion, as if it were evaporating, or morphing into cloud.

 With the palette so neutral thus far, I made the lanterns in red and blue pops of color on the page.


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