Enter the Dragon

When Monday rolled around and the weekly challenge at Simon Says Stamp was revealed to be "Masculine" and then the Wednesday challenge was also "Masculine", I sat down with my 6 year old to think about what we could do - I suggested something with a lot of gears and riveted metal and she didn't love the idea.... the steampunker in me was devasted.  She suggested we do something with bright colours and hearts - so then I had to explain that that probably wouldn't fit with the theme challenge.  

So then we had a conversation about what "masculine' means - and I tried to give examples of masculine signifiers that 6 year old could understand - things like colours etc.  I got to tell you I had the best conversation about the arbitrariness of culturally defined markers of masculinity.  She wanted to know why colours make something boy-like when it is just a colour?  Then she wanted to know how did they choose those colours to be boy-like then she wanted to know who made the rules about boy-colours and girl colours, and boy-rules and girl-rules.  Then she wanted to know why the people who made the nonsensical rules made the rule that  boys shouldn't like flowers, hearts and pretty colours.  I loved all the philosophical reflection.  I also loved that she thought these categories of masculinity and its markers were irrelevant, arbitrary and completely ridiculous. Plus I think I have a budding feminist philosopher on my hands.  

Following the existential disappointment she felt in the state of culture - we had to come up with an idea that would both uphold her convictions in starting a cultural revolution that would spearhead a challenge of the arbitrary norms 😝but still stay within the scope of the challenge.  

Now it is not a big secret that both my spunky 6 year old and I both love the "How to train your Dragon" franchise, the "Dragon Riders" series so I suppose it inevitably transpired that she suggested that we do a Dragon themed card.  In retrospect and as I type this post - the layers of significance in this piece of pop-culture film in relation to our existential resolution is magnificent.  If you remember any of the HTTYD films - you will have noted that it expertly deals with issues of 'stereotyping' and 'toxic masculinity' in the most awesome, entertainingly educational way. Hiccup the protagonist character breaks the gender trope of the male hero being excessively brute, violent, and disposed toward force and domination. The Dragons are multi-coloured and sparkly beautiful, they are ridden by both malesand females.  Once there is a respectful communion between the riders and themselves, they are strong and a force to be reckoned with.  Once they are able to transcend their labels - they are somewhat invincible and the nature and quality of life for all becomes a whole lot better.  So as I reflect now, I think in light of her questioning the facetiousness of gender-specific conventions and the themes dealt with in HTYYD, her suggestion of a dragon-themed card is a pretty cool rebellion on gender-tropes.

So here is what we did - a dragon- in some deep pinks, blues and greens - while still staying within the realm of things asssociated with masculinity.

We made the leathery skin on the card by wrinkling up a piece of regular 80gsm card, and 'squeeze
sponging' over it with some Dala Drawing Ink (Sepia).  It created a lovely textured effect - the ink settles in the wrinkles and pools in some places.  Dala's drawing ink has a bit of a glaze quality to it - so you can really create an approximate appearance of worn leather.  

Using artistic licence we decided that we were going to use Rune-like symbology to represent dragon script.  We made the runes with Dala's clever clay.  It is lightweight airdry clay that dries to a fun foam like consistency.  I added a drop or two of Dala black drawing ink to white clay to make a stone colour.  I got the runes mold from Temu.  We pressed the clever clay into the mold and then levelled it off with a dough scraping tool.  It requires 24 hours to dry to full cure - but I was able to liberate them out of the mold in about half of that time. They got a light sponge treatment with Dala craft paint (sand) and then a water wash to take off some of the paint so it sort of looks like weathered painted stone.

Next we were onto the Dragon - I bought the Dragon die from Temu - there were a lot of tiny pieces in the belly of the dragon - it was little bit of a mission to work with because they kept falling out.  the solution was to put a strip of Stencil glue (also Dala) on the reverse side all the way up the belly to hold those tiny pieces in place.  We coloured the dragon in

with Pentel's two-tone gels,

The background on which the dragon rests - was made with Distress inks - sort of - I just used the inking tools and I didn't add more dye to them so that the colour was not as saturated and it looked a bit muted.

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So there you have our entry for the Monday Challenge of Masculine on Simon Says Stamp.