A Dragon, Be Dragon, See Dragon, Too

When I was editor for Designing new games I wrote an article on using dragons in games. Now I'm writing one on using dragons in art. And Why?! Because dragon are cool! ('Kew1' for the typing impaired). I was also born in the year of the Dragon (1976) in a month associated with Dragons (April). My mother once had a bearded dragon for a pet. Ok, maybe I'm going too far with this.

Regardless, Dragons are a piece of fantasy and generally inspire a particular kind of art, but who's to say that they cannot be used in Cubism or Constructivism or Impressionism? There are a great number of fantasy fans out there who would jump on a really attractive cubic dragon painting, I'm sure (Note to self, start painting). Dragons mean many things to many people, especially in a cultural sense. Examine how dragons are treated in a Western based culture versus an Eastern based culture. Westeners typically view dragons based on mythos such as 'The Dragon and St. George', the Damsel in Distress Routine, and basically as nasty stupid creatures meant to be slain. Easterners hold dragons in a position of reverence. Dragons are Wise if not also dangerous and intelligent beings.

Dragons are also a great source of fantasy for imaginative and furtive minds. About a year back I picked up a thin book called Dragons: An Integrated Activity Unit by Bev McKay. This book is targeted for students of Upper Elementary to Middle Grade levels. I got this book in a teacher's supply store (fun place to go in and look around). Inside this book is page after page of ideas on getting children to think creatively. I suspect that many different subjects and topics are covered to do the exact same thing but I chose Dragons. Right on the first page it asks you for your dragon's name and where it lives and why it laughs. You are asked what it looks like, what it gets angry about or depressed over. I am assuming that the purpose of the exercise is more or less for a child to make himself into a dragon by associating the things of his young life onto this imaginary creature. One more thing, the child is asked to draw the dragon.

Later on in this thin book, about 32 pages long, it has a page called "The Dragons' Challenge". It asks a child to make a comparison such as "How is a dragon like a dream?" or "like a nightmare?", "volcano". How a dragon is like anything or how any single thing can be like something else is something that an artist's mind should be at constant work on. How is Litter like a Disease? How is Paper like a Chandelier? How am I like a mud puddle? These kinds of comparisons create mental images of one object combined with another. These kinds of comparisons allow us as artists to really pack some meaning into a piece of art. A particular emphasis on this may be attributed to Surrealism.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic