Common Cliff Dragon--Male

The Artdog Image of Interest 
This month I've been posting some of my own artwork for my Images of Interest. This is a representative image from my edition of multiple originals titled Common Cliff Dragon--Male. It was recently listed in my Etsy shop, Artdog Paper Sculpture.

My three drawings from 2012, inked and scanned.

It was developed from three pencil drawings I did back in 2012, each created to overlay the one below. The "cliff surface" is one layer, the dragon's body is the second, and the dragon's wings are the third. Once the three were aligned on tracing paper, I inked them, scanned them, then colored each using Adobe Illustrator and a Wacom "Bamboo" tablet.

These are the pieces I cut out.

The artwork prints out as five different pieces: the border base (on heavier archival stock) with the title in the rectangle; the cliff face (sculpted and floated over the base), the body of the dragon; and finally two layers of wings, one more heavily sculpted and glued over the lower layer for a better 3D effect.

Here's the assembly process.

Then it's time to cut the pieces out, which I do with small, precise scissors (they go dull so much less often than X-Acto knives! Then I sculpt with clay-working tools on the flat surface of paper laid over corkboard, assemble the pieces, and it begins to look almost alive, sometimes.

IMAGES: All images are by me, of pieces of a paper sculpture made by me, Jan S. Gephardt. You may use them online, if you'll provide accurate attribution and a link back. Thanks!