Smaugust 2025 art challenge (there are dragons)

I never got around to thinking of a photoshoot for Ivy today, and almost didn't post anything. But, about 30 minutes ago, I thought, "Why don't I just use up the oil paints we played with earlier and see if I can paint some dragons in a storm."

(After 20 years of never really pulling out my oil paints, I brought them out today for my kids and I to play with--and to test if I could clean oil paint brushes without solvents and just using soap. Yes, yes I could!)

I'd cleaned all but one of the brushes, and thought, "Let's see if I can paint something without washing my brush and just using the colors at hand."

This was complicated by the fact that I currently had brown on the brush. But, with lots of smearing and blending, I ended up with a vaguely stormy/sunsetty scene that maybe takes place over water.

For having no idea what I was doing, I think it turned out decently. It needs more contrast to balance out the vivid dragons, but, I think it's alright.

I'm loving the different ways the words are interpreted. That is what art is about isn't it? Oliver's pictures are so clever - the way the dragon becomes part of the word's meaning (I particularly like 'ash' so far!).
Looking forwards to seeing what else you might share - thank you!

The theme today is 'fossil', so Rosa suggested I tell you Squiggles' story. Which is quite a long one!

One day, a few years ago, just before Christmas, a parcel arrived for me. I opened it to check what was in it then put it down on one of my little stone-topped cabinets that I seem to have a bit of a collection of. They are considered rather unfashionable, but I love the traditional look of them, and the way they fit neatly below a window without taking up too much room, and the way they enable me to collect some wonderful bits of stone for me to drool over and stroke and call my precious when nobody is looking. Plus they often go for hardly any money, which suits my frugal nature!

And of course, as soon as my back was turned, the dragons couldn't resist going over to have a look. Nobly assisted by Great Uncle Bulgaria.



The dragons carefully lifted out the bubble-wrapped object inside, laid it down on the top of the cabinet and pulled the wrap away so they could see what was inside.



"It's a rock!" declared Iggy.

"Looks more like a giant snail to me..." thought old Fortuna.

The looked a bit more closely...

"Ooooh. Shiny!" drooled Spot. "And the patterning is simply beautiful!"



Great Uncle Bulgaria however thought he knew what it was and instructed the dragons to turn it over, gently.



What they saw on the other side left them speechless for a moment. It really was very, very beautiful...



"Ah of course, young dragons!" declared Great Uncle Bulgaria. "It is obviously a longitudinal section of a fossilised ammonite. They were very common in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and went extinct around 66 million years ago..."

When Great Uncle Bulgaria starts on one of his waffling sessions, the dragons do try to humour him by listening for at least a minute. But he does tend to go on and on and on so they left him spouting relentlessly from one of Alan's old school books until he eventually realised that the only one left listening to him was a small plastic dinosaur who had appeared from nowhere and seemed to know more about the subject than he did himself. So he decided to stop waffling and take forty winks instead.



Meanwhile Spot was fascinated by the shape and went off to find some books to help her research it,



Iggy, on the other hand, had recently been teased for talking as though he'd swallowed an encyclopaedia so he decided to go and ask Austin if he had a story book he could borrow instead, to broaden his literary horizons.

Together they chose this one as being likely to appeal to him and broaden his mind a little.



When I'd come back from doing chores, I realised the dragons had unwrapped my ammonite fossil for me, and I too drooled over it for a while and then found it a home on the top shelf of my display cabinet where I thought it would feel at home.



But of course, that wasn't the end of the story. As they rarely are if you have a house full of dragons where magic tends to happen...

My display cabinet was pretty much full by now, but I do love rocks. Wild ones included.  

I'd sort of promised I'd stop collecting them, but as we're still renovating the house and need a few more bits of furniture for it, I'm always looking out for suitable pieces that just happen to have pretty stone tops. Or sometimes just the tops themselves so that I can quietly sneak them onto to normal cupboard tops in the hope that they don't take up any extra room and I don't upset anyone by making the place even more cluttered

This one was for sale locally, for just €5, including a lovely little sideboard that fits nicely next to the washbasin. It has a convenient shelf for storing boxes of home-made soaps and a little drawer where I keep seed-saving bags. Because not much is normal in my house and it seemed a good place to put them. And just look at the fossils in the stone top!



This one has some very pretty pink bits, AND fossils! The photo doesn't do it justice though...



And then there's my favourite, a beautifully carved table with a piece of Portuguese breccia from Arrábida. Breccia is made up of fragments of all sorts of rocks that have become cemented together over time. Like rubble that formed during an earthquake and all flowed together then sat around for hundreds and thousands, maybe even millions, of years until it all congealed back into rock. The result is that a shelf made out of a piece is like having a whole rock collection in one piece.

And if you look, you can sometimes find fossils hidden inside!

I think there's some there...



And this one looks like it's been cut through at an angle, which I guess is going to happen if all the original bits of stone all got jumbled up together...

There's probably a name for that sort of section, but I'm not going ask Great Uncle Bulgaria if he knows about it because he'll never stop waffling at me. And anyway he's asleep.



These are some really pretty ones! I wonder what sort they are...



A few days later, after Christmas was over and we were all getting ready for the new year and thinking about what we'd learned over the previous one, Spot and Iggy were trying to draw some three dimensional shapes and figure out the mathematics behind them. When all of a sudden the pens were snatched out of their hand by Somebody New who appeared to be trying to communicate with them.



Spot, who is good at languages, tried to talk with him to but to no avail.

Then she noticed that he kept flashing different colours across his skin, which is a language chameleons are familiar with, but she still didn't understand very well.

"He seems to want the pens for something. Why don't you give him a fresh sheet of paper so he can use them. Maybe he can write. Or draw." I suggested.

So Iggy sorted it all out for him and they watched to see what the new arrival would do.



"It seems to be something, er, sort of aqueous to me..." suggested Iggy.

Rubeus, who had come over to make sure nothing was amiss (he is rather protective of his family) snorted a little and said that it looked like just a bunch of squiggles to him.

"Maybe that is his name, in his own language." suggested Spot.

And so he became known to the dragons as Aqueous Squiggles. Or squiggles for short.

But what sort of creature was he? And how did he get here?

Nothing for it but to ask Great Uncle Bulgaria I guess, so the dragons braced for waffley-ness and asked him.

"Well he appears to be an ammonite, like the sort that would have lived in that fossil that arrived a few days ago. Only they went extinct 66 million years ago so it can't be."

And yet, there he was.

Spot was the one who managed to work it out. He was an exceedingly shy ammonite who had survived by hiding away until his shell had fossilised. And now he had finally arrived somewhere that he felt safe and had spent the last few days plucking up the courage to come out of his shell and try to make friends with us.

Dear little creature. It must be so lonely hiding away in your shell for 66 million years, even if you are shy!

And gradually he began to make friends with all the other plushies. Even Nemesis! Though I did have to make some peixes da horta for them to share before Squiggles was prepared to get too close. Sperm whales tend to eat thing that look like ammonites, especially ones that have come out of their shells!



Squiggles seemed to enjoy sharing a meal, and started to rummage round looking at my collection of plates.

And then he found my most special plate of all that I hadn't quite gotten around to admitting to Austin that I'd bought. Oooops.



Squiggles stroked the plate gently and looked up at me with those enormous, limpid eyes of his.

"What's wrong Squiggles? Do you want the plate for something? You want more peixe da horta?

Squiggles frowned a little and began to stroke the fossils in the stone plate. Of course - Squiggles is very, very old and maybe he knew those creatures when they were alive. That might be awkward...

"Were they your friends, Squiggles?"

Squiggles looked sheepish, then reached out and touched my collection of stone eggs that he'd also found somewhere. There were nine of them.

"No Squiggles, you can't put the stone eggs on the stone plate. It might break."

Then he reached behind him and touched my collection of old lace doilies that I'd rescued from around the place and looked at me wistfully again.

And then I understood.

"Why of course you can, Squiggles. Let's go through them and choose a doily that looks nice on the plate and will cushion it a bit if you put the stone eggs on. I'm so glad we're learning to communicate."



So we tried all the doilies until we found one that just right and Squiggles began to arrange the nine eggs on the eight-sided plate, very carefully and precisely, and seemed to be counting and double and triple checking the positions as he did so. Then he climbed up onto them and sat on top of them, like a broody hen on her nest, and I put the whole nest safe on one of my cupboards. Which at the time still had a wooden top but as I write this I feel compelled to admit that it now has a lovely fiery red bit of stone that appeared a few weeks ago, but that's not really relevant to this story and wasn't there when I took the photos.

And there he stayed for a couple of years. Rosa, who arrived later, is very fond of him and his collection of eggs. And wonders if they are likely to hatch any time soon.



But they still hadn't hatched a couple of years later. Squiggles sits on them very patiently and Rosa very often watches over him.



Eventually I decided to move him over to the stone topped cabinet by the window where it was a bit quieter for him, and he would hold those eggs very, very carefully so as not to disturb any of them or let them move at all.



It was Iggy who noticed it first.

Every year, a few days before Christmas, Squiggles would rearrange the eggs. Not much. He'd just quietly assess all the positions and move just one egg one 'notch' around the eight sided plate. As though he was counting.

"I wonder how long he's been doing that?" Iggy thought.

"Mum, can ammonites count?"

"Well it sure looks like it to me."

Iggy studied the layout of the eggs and tried to figure out how it might work.

"Squiggles has eight tentacles, and the plate has eight sides. I think he counts in base eight!"

"You might be right Iggy. And he has nine eggs. And he seems to count once a year."

"So I think he can count up to 1 000 000 000 in base eight then. That would be 134 million in decimal. If he only counts up once a year, it's going to take him a long time before he runs out of numbers with that plate and those eggs."

"Didn't Great Uncle Bulgaria say that ammonites went extinct 66 million years ago?"

"Yes he did." Iggy thought for a while. "So he might only be half way though. Will the eggs hatch when he's finished counting?"

"I don't know Iggy. But I think Squiggles might believe that."

Iggy thought some more.

"I've been reading that story book Austin lent me. And there's a story in it about Tibetan monks to try to write out all the names of God. Maybe it's like that. When he's been through all the possible combinations it's time for the eggs to hatch and ammonites to live again!"



"Well maybe you should study his code a bit more to see if your theory is right. Unless you learn to speak ammonite so you can just ask him."

And so the dragons decided to watch Squiggles intently to see if they could crack the code and figure out if he really was trying to count up to to 134 million or so in octal.

They all gathered around, quietly, without any fuss, and began to watch. And one by one, the dragons fell asleep...

I couldn't resist using the coprolite (fossilized poop) that I gave my husband a few years ago. Ivy didn't like getting her picture taken whilst pooping

Lol.
coprolite is the only think I can think of too.  Couldn't think of a good picture yet.

r ranson wrote:Lol.
coprolite is the only think I can think of too.  Couldn't think of a good picture yet.

That's because I still have your dragon

To be fair, I still have her chicken.

My daughter wanted to get in on the action, and drew her own bone dragon, complete with life cycle and stats!

Things specific to Bone Dragons:

- If nearing a fire, will crumble, turning into bone meal, and fertilizing plants.
- Power: Can make it rain bone shards from the sky,
- Can withstand high heat
- Can breath fire that turns other dragons into Bone Dragons and recruits them.

Fossil = old

My geriatric dragon drawing is pathetic. Proof that drawing from imagination is hard.

With only one worn down tooth left, broken horn, and a cane to help with her bad back, this fossil is ready for her nap.

Drawing dragons is hard! Their anatomy is tricky--I tend to go for beefy horse legs, or dinosaur legs. But, putting them in a pose is especially hard!

I'm not looking forward to trying to think of what to do tomorrow for hybrid!

Good job trying something new and hard. Sketching from imagination definitely fits in there!

Smaugust Day 4 by Oliver

Wow, I love how many different types of dragons Oliver has drawn, and from so many different angles. His bone dragon is so cool!

Nicole Alderman wrote:Drawing dragons is hard! Their anatomy is tricky--I tend to go for beefy horse legs, or dinosaur legs. But, putting them in a pose is especially hard!

I'm not looking forward to trying to think of what to do tomorrow for hybrid!

Good job trying something new and hard. Sketching from imagination definitely fits in there!

Admittedly, I forgot which way back legs bend, so I hid it with wings.

r ranson wrote:

Nicole Alderman wrote:Drawing dragons is hard! Their anatomy is tricky--I tend to go for beefy horse legs, or dinosaur legs. But, putting them in a pose is especially hard!

I'm not looking forward to trying to think of what to do tomorrow for hybrid!

Good job trying something new and hard. Sketching from imagination definitely fits in there!

Admittedly, I forgot which way back legs bend, so I hid it with wings.

I forget almost every time I felt a dragon. I have to look at a previous dragon, or at a dragon anatomy image.

I think the worst thing about generally being able to draw things I'm looking at, is that people assume I can draw things that I can't look at. I can draw an awesome bunny if I'm looking at it...but it if you ask me to draw it from memory, it's going to be terrible. It probably has to do with my inability to mentally picture things (things in my mind's eye are very vague and colorless. and I can't focus on details).

I tried my hand at watercolor today, going for a hybrid cat-dragon. There's a lot I don't like about it (the sky has too much contrast and draws the eye from the cat-dragon, and my cat proportions are wonky), but, I had fun!

Burra, I haven't said yet, but I'm loving your photos and stories.

I'm loving everyones dragons!

I loved todays prompt so much, I'm doing an oil painting.   I don't know if I'll finish today as the weather has gotten close like we are due a thunderstorm. I can't get enough air or coffee into my brain to think.  So I'm going to have a nap.

Smaugust Day 5 by Oliver

My daughter made a hybrid bunny-dragon!

Bunny only properties: Fluffy tail

Power: Can jump very high; can hear very well; can make giant bunny tails to crush enemies.

Oooooh, I like how Oliver made a hybrid of fire and ice. I was just thinking about hybrid animals. So cool, Oliver!

Hybrid reminds me of the Cockatrice, a creature hatched of a cockerel egg that was incubated by a snake or something like that.  The mythology varies and for some weird reason, this never seems to get as much fame as his cousin the basilisk.  Both have a gaze that can turn a person to stone.  (I should have painted his eyes closed)

My painting is petrifying in a different way.



The goal wasn't to make a wall-worthy painting, but rather to see if I could paint a cockatrice at all.

I found this image on several websites, and can't find who made it originally.  It has several errors, like why the two wings are so different, and I left most of them in.  It seems more like the errors a human would make, not AI.  It's still a pretty cool pictures.  But I wanted something more chicken.



I'm also playing around with a new limited palette to see if it can catch the mood I'm looking for.  It's based on my favourite watercolour colour combination, but... I'm not sure if it's working in oils.



It might be better suited for landscapes.

The background is a mixture of all four colours leftover from yesterday's mixing chart making.  I went sort of backwards with the hackles and comb to try and capture a mood.  

I had originally allocated 2 hours to this, but I forgot this size canvas and mixing new paint colours need more time.  It ended up taking five hours of sloppy painting.   But meh.  I learned a tonne about this mythical creature and have all sorts of ideas for my future cockatrice paintings.  This little study was a lot of fun.  Even if I'll probably paint over it in a couple of years.  

Wow! Your Cockatrice is so cool! I love how you changed the head and feet to be more rooster-like. The color palette is very nice, too. Maybe the belly could have been more saturated to match the rest of the dragon body, but I was really impressed when I fist saw it. He looks so good in oil paint!

You need a little fantasy den to hang him in. He'd look so cool there!

I was thinking of a snake and how the underside is usually white.  I think.  I don't know much about snakes aside from that time we helped a bunch of people weigh a ... can't remember what it's called, but the head was as big as a small person...considering I wasn't in my teens yet, it was bigger than me...when open.  Anyway, not much expierence with snakes after that afternoon volunteering at a reptile safe house.

My memories of their pale bellies comes from the plastic lizard toys that I had as a kid, and from trying to draw dinosaurs to decorate a classroom with. For fun, I took your lovely cockatrice and played with the belly color, changing it's hue and saturation to that of the rest of the body. It could probably be a shade lighter than this, but when I tried lightening it in photoshop, it did removed the shading and contouring, or something.

l love the cockatrice, and the ice-and-fire dragon.

I was going to skip the hybrid day as something cropped up and I was totally mentally exhausted by it. Plus it's crazy hot and I don't cope too well with heat.

But I thought I'd share a photo of an old wooden chest which I saw for sale but decided against buying because I couldn't think of anywhere I could fit it inside the house.



I absolutely love it. I even had names lined up for them - Cock and Trice, naturally. But I already have one old chinese cedarwood chest stuck in the corner of my room, blocking half the bookcase, with dragons and phoenixes on. Any my house simply isn't big enough to fit in all the dragons I find.

Anyway, as I was typing Iggy snuck up and reminded me that he is a hybrid and that maybe we could work together on a little story about him and the way dragon hybrids work.

How could I refuse?



Watch this space!

The cockatrice is interesting. It reminds me of how chickens are like modern dinosaurs (and dinosaurs are nearly dragons right?)


source

Nicole Alderman wrote:My memories of their pale bellies comes from the plastic lizard toys that I had as a kid, and from trying to draw dinosaurs to decorate a classroom with. For fun, I took your lovely cockatrice and played with the belly color, changing it's hue and saturation to that of the rest of the body. It could probably be a shade lighter than this, but when I tried lightening it in photoshop, it did removed the shading and contouring, or something.

People who see the painting in person all agree with you.

I think I'm in a grumpy mood as there is too much out of season rain to go en plein air (outside) painting today.  It's got my arthritis bad.  Love that it's raining as the farm is in dire need of moisture.  

Anyway, grumpy mood and the dull, back of a cave lighting, makes me think the green of the body is too saturated.  Dull that down and the bottom third of the painting. This will help the belly look more like the wings (same colour as the leather part, just applied in different ratios and with different colours beside it).  Do something to up the contrast with the head (darken the background? or change the location of the light shafts?) and the composition might work better.  But I'm also very happy with how it turned out and what this limited palette can accomplish.

The painting get put facing the wall to dry.  Partly so dust doesn't get stuck in the paint.  Partly so I can get some distance and see it anew in a few weeks.

I suspect there will be more cockatrice paintings in my future.  

Anyway, as I was typing Iggy snuck up and reminded me that he is a hybrid and that maybe we could work together on a little story about him and the way dragon hybrids work.

Looking forward to it.  

r ranson wrote:
Anyway, grumpy mood and the dull, back of a cave lighting, makes me think the green of the body is too saturated.  Dull that down and the bottom third of the painting. This will help the belly look more like the wings (same colour as the leather part, just applied in different ratios and with different colours beside it).  Do something to up the contrast with the head (darken the background? or change the location of the light shafts?) and the composition might work better.  But I'm also very happy with how it turned out and what this limited palette can accomplish.

Photoshop fun for easy visualization! I was curious, too, what the change would be. I was thinking that maybe desaturating the body would make the head be too saturated in contrast to the body. I didn't try messing with the backgrounds. I just changed the body to the same hue as the belly (the belly is more olive than the rest of the body), and then I changed both hue and saturation of the body.

I think you're right that the olive green hue of the belly would look nice on the rest of the dragon. It's original grassy green was a a bit brighter than the rest of the painting and really stood out. Here's some quick photoshop for visualization purposes. (I'm now realizing why artists used to do color sketches before doing their painting, because they couldn't just throw it in photoshop to see the different ways the color affects the painting. Color is so hard!)

The painting get put facing the wall to dry.  Partly so dust doesn't get stuck in the paint.  Partly so I can get some distance and see it anew in a few weeks.

Very wise! A lot of my paintings and art need time to sit until I can tell what exactly about them was bugging me so I could fix it.

I love your cockatrice painting so much. I think it's worth putting in the effort to have it be something you love--or at least painting another one.

I felt inspired last night at around 12:30am, to paint a mist dragon. I wanted my dragon to be walking through the misty woods. I wasn't sure what color to make the mist, but I found that my white watercolor had been contaminated by purple, and realized this would make a lovely misty color.

I then made the dragon in the same ultramarine violet to match the mist. It's not perfect, but not bad for a 40 minute sketch/watercolor.

Smaugust day 6 dragon inspired by fog or mist

Here's my daughter's Mist dragon!

Mist only features: If near a storm, will--against their will--turn invisible.

Power: Can make mist clouds that hypnotize enemies; can make stormy weather.

My head is a complete mess again today but I promised Iggy I'd help him write a story about hybrids, how awesome they are and why they are so special.

Here is Iggy, with his parents - his father, Rubeus, who is a fire dragon, and his mother, Serra, who is an earth dragon.



Now, it's important to understand that dragons, well, my dragons anyway, represent aspects of yourself.

Serra represents me as I am now. Not exactly old but heading that way. Done all sorts of things. Reached a time in her life when she just wants to bumble around doing what she wants, when she wants with whatever energy she has, but still willing to jump in and help when her family needs it. She tends to go off up the mountain by herself and hang around in caves and forests.



Rubeus is a little more complicated. He represents the relationship I have with my partner, Austin. He is very protective and fatherly but he is also a little inclined to be grumpy and dislike soppy stuff, like hugs.



At first glance, they seem very different, but they value each other's differences and I'm beginning to suspect they aren't so very different when you peel the layers off a little.

So naturally Iggy, whose full name is Igneous, combines some of the aspects of both earth and fire. Which is why he's fascinated with rocks and volcanoes and science and the way the universe works. In a way, he represents all the good things that can grow from a relationship between two people who may appear to be so very different.

But I think I'm going to have to give a bit of history and explain why everybody thought Austin and I were so different, and we came to realise we would actually make rather an awesome couple. In our own, rather weird way...

When I was in school, I was a little goody-two-shoes. I'd been raised by my parents to behave properly interact with people correctly. I put a lot of effort into doing just that. I was also hypersensitive to sound and light, though to me it just seemed normal.

Austin was loud and obnoxious and never made any attempt whatsoever to fit in with anyone. And I resented him for it.

Plus he gave me headaches if I got too close to him as he was loud and I was hypersensitive to sound.

What we didn't realise at the time, because this was nearly fifty years ago, was that we are both autistic. Both of us misfits in out own way. Only I was a masker and the way I had been trained to behave was basically the way my mother had learned to behave when she was a child growing up. The way that had enabled to fit in with society, even though she knew nothing about autism.

Austin, however, was very much NOT a masker! His mother had gone through life doing exactly what she wanted and excelling at it - racing motorcycles, moving off-grid to raise goats on a Welsh mountain - and she had raised her children to live the way she lived herself, proud to be herself and not attempting to fit in with anyone!

Years later, we became friends on facebook.  Being able to communicate on screen rather than in person meant that I could 'listen' to him without getting a headache. Over the years we became rather good friends but not exactly close. At some point I realised that I was autistic and that my hypersensitivities were not normal. And I learned about the problems autism can cause, and also the gifts it can bring. I also learned that I'd been masking my whole life, and that it was exhausting. And that real friends could accept me for who I really was without me having to act a certain way or talk in ways that some people might find annoying. I could just be bluntly honest and my real friends would value that and respond in kind.

After I was widowed, when I was ready for a new partner I asked Austin if he would be interested. And step by step we learned how to navigate our differences.

He was still loud, and I was still hypersensitive to sound. But now I understood autism and masking, so instead of being polite and not telling him to shut up, I explained to him that I was hypersensitive to sound and it would hurt my ears when he spoke, which meant I couldn't listen to what he was saying. So I developed a hand-signal to ask him to quiet down if ever he spoke too loudly for me to be able to listen comfortably. He had never really analysed it, but he was hypersensitive to touch, which is why he doesn't like hugs as they overwhelm him, just like loud music overwhelms me. So he doesn't play music around me and I don't hug him any more than I really need to. And now we can have amazingly deep conversations about life, the universe and everything without me getting headaches, without worrying about being too blunt and upsetting each other, and without me wasting energy on the masking that I thought everybody else was doing, even though it turned out most of them weren't.

So were we so very different?

I don't think so. We just had different hypersensitivities and different upbringings. We had the same outlook on life, the same desire to talk openly and honestly to figure out solutions to the world's problems, a desire to live simply and basically with plenty of space around us, and a desire to have a partner who understands you and has your back, who you trust completely and who trusts you completely.

Not so much opposites, more like two sides of the same coin.

Which is partly why we had some special rings made of identical coins. Though we rarely use them now as neither of us are very good at wearing jewellery. Though for some reason most of my dragons love to wear some special piece.



Iggy had been reading over my shoulder as I typed, and had questions...

"But mum, how does this apply to dragons?" he asked.

"Well, a hybrid dragon is like a new relationship. You have a mix that might never have existed before. Which gives you some special strengths, and also some potential weaknesses."

Rosa was listening by this point too, and was having her own ideas.

"Is it like landrace gardening mum? Like when you put all different genetics in the garden and see what does best?"

"Well, a little. But there are important differences too. With landrace gardening you are letting all the genetics muddle up together and then choosing the plants that do best in your garden. Dragons, and people, are a little different. We aren't restricted to blossoming in the garden where we are planted. We can analyse our strengths, put them to use where we see fit, find ways of compensating for our weaknesses. We can find our niche in the world, but plants mostly have to just see if they can cope where they find themselves."

"But you two don't *always* do things together, do you mum?" enquired Iggy.

"No. We are both loners in our way. Especially me, I need a lot of down time and a lot of alone time. I'm a bit like Serra and need to go off up the mountain and spent time getting my hands in the earth..."



"... and Austin is a bit like Rubeus and likes to find an excuse to go flying off all over the place in his precious car."



"But when we are together, we are a bit like you Iggy. We combine our strengths, brainstorm, figure out the meaning of life, the universe and everything and try to put the world to rights. And hope that while we're at it we can figure out how to cope with our mutual weaknesses. But we're still working on that, which is why the house is still only half renovated and it's all higgledy-piggledy and such a mess. We're working on it though - and we managed to get the rocket mass heater built last year! Still have to finish the bench though, I must get around to clearing out that corner so there's room to work there..."

And I suppose I'd better stop writing now and go and do some clearing up. Iggy has skulked off because he too missed out on the gene for being able to keep house and wants to go and see if he can figure out how light and energy are related and whether he can model it using 3D printed dragons. Rosa on the other hand seems to have inherited the gene for wanting to keep things neat and tidy and is busy scuttling around trying to find her little cleaning brush and a zokin so she can clean up. That's the thing with hybrids - you never know which genes you're going to inherit so you just have to make the best of whichever ones you have and find your niche so you can shine in your own way.

But sometimes we have to clean up anyway, so I guess I'd better go and get started even if I'm not very good at it...

Smaugust Day 7 striped dragon

My daughter succeeded where I did not. She managed a striped dragon!

Striped Only Feature: Eyes, that, when in darkness, glow in the dark and turn stripey.

Power: Can Hypnotize other dragons; can turn into only stripes; can fly fast.

The last three days got away from me.

But also, the ideas are bigger than my skills.

Mist is like steam, so the idea was something like a monet train station but instead of train, dragon would emerge from the steam.

Stripes

This reminded me of the way van gogh drew, especially after using rushes to make a kind of pen in the south of france.

I was thinking like a stary night dragon.

Smaugust Day 8 by Oliver

Rosa wanted to have ago at another challenge and came to ask me what the next prompt was.

"Wyverns!" I told her.

"What are wyverns?"

Iggy climbed up onto the bed to join in the fun, and explained to her that wyverns were dragons who had two legs and two wings.



"But all of us have four legs, don't we?"

"All of us up here do." agreed Iggy. "Except the sea dragons. But I think Gwanwyn, Avril, Augusta and Verão who live downstairs only have two. And wings. So they might be wyverns!"

Rosa was horrified that there were four dragons living downstairs that she hadn't met yet.

"How come I haven't met them? Where are they hiding? Mum, why don't they come and play with us?"

"Ah, well they are different from you plushies. They mostly stay in the same place. And they are more two dimensional, and rather self contained, with a special job to do. And they don't talk much, except between themselves. I think they arrived before you got here, Rosa so maybe you never noticed them."

"I remember them arriving!" declared Iggy. "They arrived at the same time as the sea dragons! I remember Rubeus going off on a rescue mission far off to the west where the land meets the sea to find them and bring them home. I bet they have stories to tell. Can you tell us their story, mum?"

"Well, I can tell a small part of it. Like, how they arrived here. But I think there is still a lot of their story I don't know. And maybe it hasn't all happened yet. I think a lot of stories are works in progress so all we can do is write what we know of the story so far."

Rosa was almost bursting with a desire to know more, so I thought I'd better share what little I did know.

One morning, Rubeus had got up extra early and had a good long chat with Rock, the Welsh sheepdog. In Welsh, naturally!



They had heard rumours that there were several dragons in need of rescuing and Rubeus had arranged with Austin to go off on a rescue mission to bring them home to live with us. Rock said that he had heard some of them singing at night and that they were off many miles to the west of us. Rubeus figured out a plan of action and left Rock in charge of looking after mum and the rest of the family while he went off with Austin to see what they could achieve.

Rubeus sat on the dashboard as he didn't trust these new-fangled GPS things and wanted to navigate properly, the way he had always done it.

"WEST!" He kept insisting. "Why are we going north? We need to fly west!"

"Rubeus," Austin tried to explain, "we are in a van. It doesn't have wings. We can't just fly over the mountain and the serras are likely to be too icy to safely navigate this time of year so we are going to have to drive around them. Which involves going north first. Then we can hang a left and head west. Patience, dragon!"

Rubeus harrumphed and looked totally unconvinced. But as Austin was driving he had to accept the he didn't get to make all the decisions. And anyway, he had to admit that vans don't have wings...



A couple of hours later, they had bypassed the mountains and Rubeus was listening intently as he had heard dragon song and was trying to home in on it.

"I don't think it's as far west as we thought. I think we are nearly there. Can we turn down here?"

Austin obliged and eventually they homed in on the source of the dragon song and knocked on the door of the house it seemed to be coming from. They were shown in and this was the sight that greeted them.

I mean, even without the dragons, just look at that bit of stone!



A rescue deal was struck and Austin triumphantly loaded the stone and the dragons whose job it was to support it into the van.

And then it became apparent that these were no ordinary dragons. They sang as beautifully as the sirens of the ancient oceans must have done, and somehow Rubeus could understand, and admitted to Austin that the rescue was not yet over. And they did indeed have to continue further west.



And Austin, being a good sort, headed off even further afield to see what else needed to be done...


To be continued...

They drove further and further to the west and eventually they could see the glint of giant waves breaking on the shore as the sea, spurred on by strong winds that blew across the Atlantic ocean, broke triumphantly and rather scarily onto the land. The sea dragons were very excited to see their old home, and the sea seemed just as excited to greet its old inhabitants. But they soon calmed down and guided Rubeus to a shop near the sea-front where more dragons were apparently in need of rescuing. Austin parked the van as near to the shop as he could and went inside to see what needed to be done.

And this is what he found - a most beautiful set of kitchen cabinets, with marble tops and dragon carvings on the doors. One cabinet had three doors, and the other two. Pretty much a complete set that would just about fit in our new kitchen, when we finally get around to renovating it...



Another rescue deal was struck and eventually all the dragons, plus the marble tops, were loaded into the van ready to be brought home.



The next morning, the sea dragon table was brought upstairs. I thought it could be my writing table and that the dragons could sing inspiration to me. But mostly I just store my laptop on it while the plushies pile on top of it. They do sing very beautifully, and they are a total inspiration to me though. And I love it dearly.

Then the boys unloaded the two-door cabinet. They decided to leave it there until they'd got the bigger one safely inside.



They man-handled the three-door cabinet inside to where the kitchen will be one day, and I eagerly snuck down to meet the new dragons.



This one is Gwanwyn!



Rosa peered at the photo as it showed up on screen as I wrote the story.

"What is she doing?" Rosa asked.

"I think she has a bare twig and is huffing on it ever so gently." I suggested.

"Why would she do that?" Rosa wondered.

And then we had a look at the other dragon, Gwanwyn's sister, Avril.



"She's doing exactly the same thing!" declared Rosa, puzzled.

"I think they're working together," I suggested "breathing life into the twigs."

"LOOK MUM - they've done it! Look at the middle door! The twigs have grown flowers!"

I don't think I've ever seen Rosa so excited about anything. There, on the middle door, was a basket of flowers that had grown from bare twigs after Gwanwyn and Avril, whose names are the Welsh words for Spring and April, had breathed life into them after Winter had passed.

"That is so beautiful, I think I'm going to cry..." sniffled Rosa.

Dear Rosa, she's so soppy and sentimental when it comes to flowers.



Iggy was a bit concerned about Rosa but knew better than to disturb her too much when she was crying. And anyway they were happy tears so there wasn't really much he could do to help, as no help was really needed. So he came up to me for a chat instead.

"So are they wyverns, mum?"

"I think so - two legs and wings, and obviously dragons."

"So they are a perfect fit for today's story then! I'd better let you finish writing it..."

"Well I'll do my best. Here's a photo of both cabinets after the boys had brought them indoors. With their drawers and marble tops fitted. I'm looking forward to the day that those marble tops become my kitchen worktops..."



"Let's have a look at the dragons on the two-door cabinet. Rosa, do you want to join in?"

Rosa dried her eyes and we had a look at Augusta.

"Oh just look at her!" gasped Rosa, "She has the most amazingly strong neck on her. She looks like old Jenny Jones, Alan's first pony. Maybe her daddy was a Welsh Cob. Are they related to dragons?"

"I'm not sure Rosa. I didn't really think so, but she does remind me of Jenny's sire, Llanarth Flying Comet. And she does indeed look VERY strong."

"Her twig already has a flower. But she's still huffing on it," noticed Rosa, "in fact I think she's huffing far too strongly. If she's not careful she's going to burn that flower up."

"Well flowers don't last forever Rosa..."

"But flowers are beautiful and I think they SHOULD last forever..." sniffled Rosa, who was still feeling a bit overly emotional.



I thought it was time we had a look at the last dragon - Augusta's sister, Verão.

"Well Rosa, what do you think?"

"She's huffing on her flower too strongly too. Not as badly as Augusta, but still too strong."



"Well August is the hottest month of Summer I guess. It's August here now and I spend all day just hiding from the heat at this time of year." I noted.

"But why are they huffing so strongly on those beautiful flowers?" asked Rosa.

"Well Rosa, let's have a think. What follows flowers?"

And then Rosa worked it out.

"FRUIT!!!" she squealed in excitement. "Why didn't I think of it? Fruit! Fruit! Fruit!" she squealed. "The energy from the sun is what the plants use to make fruit. It all makes sense now!"

"That's right Rosa."

"But..." she thought. "Where are the rest of the dragons?"

"I don't know Rosa. Maybe they are still out there needing to be rescued. Not that I really have any room left to put any more..."

"Are they related to the Chinese Dragon King?" asked Iggy suddenly.

"What do you mean, Iggy?"

"Well the Chinese Dragon King, whose name is, er, Long something." Iggy squirmed a little and glanced at his little sister awkwardly. "Oh well never mind his name, but I think he shows up on the old cedar chest. Do you have photos mum. Only it's buried underneath heaps of stuff again and we can't really see it..."

Iggy was right. So I pulled up an old photo of the day the cedar chest arrived.



"I remember that day! I had a lovely time exploring all the carvings. And finding all the dragons and phoenixes..."

I pulled one more photo up...

"Look mum - there's Long, er, the Dragon King! You see him? He doesn't breathe fire like Welsh dragons, he breathes rain and is the god of water and is responsible for making things grow."

"Well water is life, after all..." I noted. "Energy from the sun is needed, but without water things won't grow either"



So yes, I  do think the dragons on the doors of the kitchen cabinets are wyverns. And I do think they are related in some way to the Chinese Dragon King. But I also know I don't have their full story. Were the cabinets made in China and imported here, like the cedar chest was? Is there an official story to them? Where are the dragons of Autumn and Winter? There must be a whole set somewhere, with baskets of fruit and maybe skinny, sleeping dragons hibernating through the winter.

I guess I need to listen out for more dragon song calling me to rescue them.

And I also need to make a bit more progress on the renovations downstairs so I can interact with the kitchen wyverns a bit more.

And, more importantly, I need to stop writing silly stories about dragons for a while and get off my butt and go and water my garden because it's August and the sun is shining far too hard on my poor little plants for them to produce well for me unless I give them everything they need.

So I'd better sign off now, even though I know in my heart that there is far more of the story of the wyverns to tell...