Family Portrait with a Dragon (Inspired by Fantasy Art)

I cannot call myself a big fan of fantasy art because I still have more traditional tastes and prefer more realistic art. However trying to be a versatile artist I take on different types of commissions ranging from children’s illustrations to imitation of engravings and portraits of famous people with rather academic look and feel. Fantasy art projects are rare in my schedule and they feel especially surrealistic in comparison with my other drawings but I do not reject opportunities to create such artworks providing that they evoke my interest. Thus, I have recently completed another fantasy art inspired commission which I consider to be by far the most unusual artwork created by me as the this family portrait features a dragon and a medieval castle along with quite extraordinary images of people.

The portrait was commissioned by an Italian guy named Dario who had already commissioned me to draw a portrait of his wife as an elf princess. It seems that Dario has a passion for fantasy art and all kinds of medieval fairy-tale themes. This time he wanted me to make an unusual portrait of his entire family – his wife, baby son and himself. Dario suggested not only quite a peculiar subject of the portrait but also an interesting mixture of media. On the portrait his wife was supposed to be drawn as a fairy with wings with a graphite pencil to make the portrait look soft while he wanted his face to be drawn in ink to give it hard manly lines. The little boy was to be drawn with color pencils to make his portrait brighter and, after all, color pencils are what little boys love to draw with too. What else makes this portrait my most unusual artwork is the drawing of a flying dragon giving a ride to the child and a Romanesque castle in the background.

Dario’s passion for art can be explained by the fact that he used to write about art for a newspaper as a critic. And this is amazing how the guy can see artworks with his trained eye. He wrote some comments on my initial sketch and I understood that he could interpret art even better that an artist. He managed to discover symbolism everywhere in the drawing and not only in objects like the flower in fairy’s hands but also in the composition and geometry of the artwork. Luckily, he was kind enough not to try finding drawbacks in my sketch.

I personally consider such kind of custom art to be an interesting gift for any person and especially for those who have everything and are hard to surprise. Well, who does not dream to be a king in a fairy-tale land owing a huge castle and having a beautiful fairy wife, a strong and brave baby with a pet dragon? A custom portrait is the easiest and most affordable way to touch a seemingly untouchable dream because drawing and painting is the most flexible art when it comes to visual realization of any dream and most incredible fantasies.