A Komodo dragon’s life
Starts with the crack of its shell,
Climbing trees to survive
An early cannibalistic hell.Agile on water, quick on land
With a chain-mail exterior,
Towering tall when it stands:
It’s the perfect apex predator.
The first painting in my wildlife canvas series: this Komodo dragon was to test my skills with the brush. It was the first time I was trying out a realistic painting: and I wanted to see if I was capable of breathing life into my art.
Having made similar attempts with pencil on paper, I decided to go with black and white. Each scale of the monitor lizard has been painted maintaining the focus on the face. The scales of the body behind have been blurred to give a depth of field. It was while painting the blurred body behind that the face really began to stand out, looking inquiringly at me, urging me on.
The completion of this gave me the confidence to start full-colour realistic canvas paintings. This painting of a monitor lizard is special for me, as it marks a transition – or rather, a widening- of art style capability. From more or less 2-dimensional/ pop-art styles to gradually incorporating 3-dimensional/ realistic elements into my paintings.
Medium : Acrylic on canvas
Size : 11″ x 15″
Reference photo by Gilles Martin