New Beaded Dragon Work

As always; starting with 'storyboard' Dragon is 16" H x 10" W. He will be placed as an off-center motif in a larger wall quilt that I'm still designing. In the storyboard you see the scales behind his head; those are being made individually out of orange/red silk and will be 3-D. I have other silk & some beautiful heavy brocaide tapestery fabric that will finish the 'frame'. I've had much fun beading him and will be adding more of the peacock scales (sequins) around his jaw area to bring that color out. And yes; each bead (and or sequin) is sewn on by hand one bead at a time.





The teeth were hand sculpted with sculpey. I 'scored' them to give them more reality. Then played with painting them to match the gold beads.



Ellen's close up shots are the bomb!




Those sequins that are black with the stars are halographic. I hand cut each one from a circle to the 'eye' shape you see then hand hole punch an additional hole to secure both ends.



The bead that started it all: The eye. For mother's day this year Ellen surprised me with a trip to the bead store. On limited funds of my own I passed over this bead and when we got home Ellen presented it to me. She had paid for it out of her own money. My daughter is the best! (A plethera of other words come to mind but that will suffice)