Greetings and welcome to my first blog post! The plan is for me to share my adventures working with dragons, painting, and how to bring more dragon energy into your life. As a start to this blog I wanted to give a quick opening of who I am. Unfortunately that didn’t come out quick or short...so here is part 1. I promise well get into more interesting material (other than my life story) starting in February. I’ll be updating this blog every 2 weeks.
Like most artists, I knew at a very young age I wanted to be an artist. I honestly don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to become an artist, even through all the typical childhood dreams that blew in and out of my brain like passing clouds. Paleontologist, (I had an extensive rubber Dino collection) marine biologist, (two other friends and I had a club where we were obsessed with dolphins, orcas, and whales) and a few other odds and ends floating by over the years. In the end it always came back to Art. In those “draw where you will be in 20 years” assignments it was always me in my grandmother’s florist drawing at a little desk. I think I instinctively knew it was in my blood. My grandmothers on both sides were artists, untold aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles were all artists, my grandfather on my dad's side was an artist. just a whole mess of creatives. We always had still lives and landscapes from family hanging in our home. It’s not that I wanted to be an artist so much as I really didn’t have a choice. I was GOING to happen.
I did well enough through school, I was one of the few fortunate kids that school came easily to and I think almost every assignment had drawings in the margins. My favorite was the back sides of my band music. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up so asking for sketchbooks wasn’t something I ever did. Every piece of band music I ever had was covered in drawings. Years later I actually ran into my middle school band director at an art show and he told me he wasn’t surprised, since I drew on my music sheets constantly.
Middle school was ”fun”. I was always the quiet, weird fat kid who didn’t talk much and kept her head down, and highschool was no different. BUT I could finally take a basic art class. I even joined the art club. There’s problems with many art classes though in that they’re either not very structured or the teachers want your art to fit their box. My work never fit the box and thanks to my numerous 90s Sue Dawe posters, I knew even then I’d be a fantasy artist. It was about my sophomore year when I made the final decision that art was the career for me, and I started researching about becoming a fantasy artist. This was the very early days of the internet; there weren't “web pages” as we know of today, and I didn’t find much outside of studios like TSR, so I kinda just plodded along working on whatever I could. Summers were filled with drawing and eventually painting when I could. Always working toward The Dream™️. This was a bit difficult and I didn’t have a lot of support. I know that my family was trying to protect me, and who knew that 10 years later social media and comic cons would be a thing and it would be the easiest time ever to be an artist. I stuck to my guns though, no matter what anyone else said.
The summer between my junior and senior year I met my boyfriend (now husband) and things really got serious. His mother is a full time artist and was gracious enough to take me under her wing. She taught me drawing and just as important, the business of being an artist. I designed my first website in 1999 under the AcrylicDragon name and started selling prints. I have learned a lot of lessons over the years, and still strive to adapt and change to the world as now tools come and go. I attended my first art show in 2006, a local renaissance fair. My booth had 9 dragon paintings and a bin of prints. I made $300, but it was the best $300 I have ever made. I still do that show, now with a double booth stuffed to the gills with art, and a bit more than $300...
Around high school is when I started an obsession with dragons. I was always into fantasy work, growing up with influences like The Last Unicorn, Labyrinth, and the amazing unicorn work of Sue Dawe. I drew a lot of unicorns up till that point, then dragons captured my heart. I checked out every book in the library that I could find about them...which wasn’t many back in the days. I started to search for dragon paintings online to use as reference, along with my trusty D&D monster manual as a drawing reference guide. I was obsessed. Dragons are a universal symbol. Every culture has myths and stories about dragons, even into modern times. Game of Thrones was the biggest event in TV history for years. As a culture we are still infatuated by dragons. They are planted deep within our psyche.
Eventually I started seeing them when I worked, then they started showing me what they wanted me to paint. Sometimes I would know instantly and could sit down and capture their likeness in one afternoon, and others would show me small bits and pieces over the course of years. People began coming into my booth and finding “Their” dragon, and if not they would ask if I could paint them. I always tell people that they have to ask their dragon to come forward, as I have a line of dragons to be painted that’s a few years long now. Eventually I became known as The DragonLady, and adopted that as my business name around 2012. Dragons come to me often and I usually have several that want to be painted at a time. I have a list. I don’t often connect people to their dragons, because they come to me on a different level. Oftentimes someone else’s dragon doesn’t want to be painted yet, or they just don’t want to share themselves with others, and I respect that. When they’re ready though, they let me know. Quite sternly. I have been woken up at 3am with dragons wanting me to paint them, and damn it, they want to be painted right then. Usually I can stave them off a few hours now.
Now, even though I was ready to paint dragons, and dragons were ready to be seen, in the early 00ts companies weren’t ready to toss money at them. I contacted many licensing companies and all of them said “no dragons, but we’ll take fairies site unseen!”. I tried ya’ll. I tried to paint fairies and just couldn’t do it. I put my head down and kept working with dragons. Around 2007 the frustration bubbled over into the art and I created The Little Wings Dragons. Cute baby dragons eating, sitting on, and generally “playing” with fairies. Think of kids with bugs. They have no clue they’re about to kill the poor thing, then just know it’s a fun little toy….and why isn’t it moving anymore? In 2014 they made the jump from art to the physical form as plushies on Kickstarter. Two designs were made via Kickstarter and I sold them at shows for 2 years when my agent managed to find a home for them. Pacific Trading bought out the remaining 600+ plush (out of 1200) then we created 4 more designs. You can now find them online and at Medieval Times. It’s pretty cool to see them all on display there! I’m hoping to see a few more designs made in the future, and I have written a children’s book based on their story and how they came into the Land of Fay. It’s super cute and is at the editors now. It’s been 10 years in the making now since I have been so busy with other projects, but I can’t wait to get rolling on it this year!
Around 2015 I had a vision of creating a series of butterfly dragons and using the Language of Flowers as a base for the meanings. As I started to do the research I realized that I wanted to paint way more than a series and morphed the idea into an oracle deck. I have always loved tarot and purchased my first deck at 13. I have thought hard about painting my own for many years. What I wanted to create wouldn’t fit with tarot though. I wanted to make something positive. Something that anyone could use without being tied down to the meanings or symbolism of tarot, so I went with an oracle deck. I started the research and created a spreadsheet. Butterfly dragons were what it would be based on, and with my love of science I decided that the butterflies had to match the flowers they were paired with. The research took 2 years and the purchase of several butterfly books, along with hours online looking at the history of flowers and where they originated from. Once I had my spreadsheet full I started the drawing...then Hayhouse emailed me.
And for the rest, come back January 25th!
thank you!
~Carla Morrow