I am currently working on a series of 'dragon' pictures in oils and egg-tempera (Mische Technique). These are not your usual 'sword & sorcery' type giant lizards - rather elemental spirits in the Chinese tradition. Each one personifies a certain element, a place, or a type of environment. The dragons are everywhere - perhaps in a waterfall, in a stone wall, or in the ocean waves. They are painted without preparatory drawings or, in most cases, reference material. Rather, I'm trying to get more of an expressionist feel which then evolves into semi-recognisable shapes.

Some notes on Mische Technique as used in the Dragon Paintings:

I start with a blank canvas with a flat English Red tempera grassa imprimatura , then apply texture with white egg tempera using a variety of techniques like sponging, dry brushing and stippling. When dry, I apply an all-over oil glaze using a mixture of Indian yellow and zinc white diluted very thinly with Old Holland quick drying medium. After this dries, I start to bring out shapes suggested by the texture using the white tempera again. Another all-over glaze of Scheveningen Blue with zinc white follows. This completes the under-painting, and the final picture is then developed with successive layers of white tempera and oil colour glazes. The finished work may have some areas which are developed in detail while other areas retain the 'optical greys' generated by the red, yellow and blue showing through the tempera texturing in differing mixtures. The result is hopefully a more spontaneous expression of the original inspiration.

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