Fine Art Fables: The Dragon After His Winter Sleep

The Dragon After His Winter Sleep is a very brief Chinese fairytale. It is just a few paragraphs long. It describes a scholar in his study, who suddenly finds a glowing little firefly burning marks along his table and books as it moves around, as if it were on fire. He took the firefly outside, but when it did not leave, he went back inside, put on his ceremonial robes, and took the bug back outside again. This is when the firefly transforms back into a dragon form. According to Chinese belief, the dragons would hibernate during winter much like all of the other scaled creatures and insects. It is also believed that when the first storm in the springtime comes, the dragon flies into the clouds. 

My own artistic inspirations lead me to draw a small firefly in front of a more massive dragon, drawn how the Chinese would have depicted a dragon, instead of in the western style. Because of the fact the dragon flies into the clouds, I made the dragon form the color of a sky, while as a firefly I used more warm tones, as if trying to keep warm in the winter months. 

Here is a link to where I found the story.