Happy Birthday to all my readers born in June!  This month we’re starting out with a cross-stitched pattern called Dragon Birthstone SAL – June/Alexandrite by American artist and crafter Gayle Tominaga, posting as jijikit, and created from a 2017 Mystery “Stitch-a-Long” pattern by Brittany Church of InglesideImaginarium.  Doesn’t he look so happy?  You can find more of Gayle’s art and craftwork in her gallery.

So June birthdays actually get three different birthstones, did you know that?  And up next, professional artist Candice C. Sciortino, who posts as Mythka, has a great representation of all three stones, because of course she does.  Below are her (Black) Pearl, Moonstone, and Daylight Alexandrite dragons from her June 2016 gemstones series.  Check out her gallery to see hundreds more amazing dragons!

 

Now getting back to alexandrite, from the wiki:

Alexandrite [is one of the three forms of chrysoberyl that] … displays a color change … dependent upon the nature of ambient lighting.  [The] alexandrite effect is the phenomenon of an observed color change from greenish to reddish with a change in source illumination. …

Because human vision is most sensitive to green light and least sensitive to red light, alexandrite appears greenish in daylight where the full spectrum of visible light is present, and reddish in incandescent light which emits less green and blue spectrum.

How interesting, don’t you think?  Up next is Naku – Alexandrite by deviantartist Uzag, a Sky Dancer Dragon from Flight Rising and one of their friend’s OCs.  Even though the stones are all ‘daylight green,’ I love how they worked the color change aspect of the gem into the dragon itself!  You can find more of Uzag’s fantasy artwork in their gallery.

Moving on to pearl, from the wiki (and I can’t believe how odd the etymology is…):

The English word pearl comes from the French perle, originally from the Latin perna meaning leg, after the ham- or mutton leg-shaped bivalve [in which the pearl is formed]. …

Natural (or wild) pearls, formed without human intervention, are very rare. Many hundreds of pearl oysters or mussels must be gathered and opened, and thus killed, to find even one wild pearl; for many centuries, this was the only way pearls were obtained, and why pearls fetched such extraordinary prices in the past. Cultured pearls are formed in pearl farms, using human intervention as well as natural processes.

There are pearls and alexandrite in this next beautiful mixed-media piece called Beaded Dragon by American professional artist Jessica M Douglas.  You can check out her gallery and website for more stunning art.  She made this one for her daughter, “to remind her that she’s completely awesome and a little dragon of awesomeness,” which is just the coolest reason to create something like this, right?  You should definitely click to see the full version, since you may not be able to see all of the details Jessica describes below:

There are over 2500 glass beads used (I lost count over the 2500 so it’s probably considerably higher). The gemstones on his face are Rhodalite Garnets and Alexandrite. Real Freshwater Pearls and Abalone Shells make up his body. Chipped mica stone make up the scales, then watercolors, colored pencils, and finally melted metallic pigments. It was well over 37 hours of work but I’m REALLY happy with it. Ridiculously happy!

Then up next, we have one of the most intriguing dragon designs I think I’ve ever featured — this is Pearl Dragon by American deviantartist Tina, posting as squidina, and the design was traded to fellow artist Fumi-LEX.  Tina captions this, “Lil clam/oyster dragon that grows pearls and hides when grumpy, sad, etc.  Will dig under the sand with only its clam part showing.”  Sometimes I wish I could just clam up and hide like this — doesn’t everyone?  And I love her little angry ‘no’ face by the closed-shell version.  See more great fantasy and RPG artwork in Tina’s gallery.

Of course once again I have to feature another of my favorites — this beautiful Pearls and Seaweed Dragon by the awesome American professional artist Lindy Briggs of How Many Dragons?.  You can order your own sculpture from at her Etsy shop!  This is one of Lindy’s newer alcohol ink dragons, where she used “cool [ink] colors on white pearl clay … [that came out] bright and vibrant, as I’d expect, but there’s a gorgeous pearly shine underneath.”  She continues the description:

The blues and purples made me want to go with an aquatic theme, so I turned this into a seaweed dragon. Hints of gold shimmer among the green accents, and iridescent bubbles nestle among the fronds that make up the horns, wings and tail. A pale green pearl rounds out the look.  Crafted from polymer clay, alcohol ink, gold foil and iridescent microbeads. Glass bead eyes, Swarovski crystal pearl. Stands about 2 inches tall.

Then we move on to the last of the three stones considered birthstones for June, the moonstone, and according to the wiki:

Moonstone is feldspar with a pearly and opalescent schiller [metallic iridescence]. An alternative name is hecatolite. …

Moonstone has been used in jewelry for millennia, including ancient civilizations. The Romans admired moonstone, as they believed it was born from solidified rays of the Moon. Both the Romans and Greeks associated moonstone with their lunar deities. In more recent history, moonstone became popular during the Art Nouveau period.

Moonstone is very popular in jewelry to this day, and this next piece is a preeminent example — check out Draco Vintiarth – Silver and Moonstone by the amazing Katarzyna Mielnik-Grzybowska and Mariusz Frodyma of Lunarieen Ltd.  This is just one example of their beautiful work, and you can see more in their gallery and purchase your own unique piece in their online and Etsy shops.

And finally, because I do love my stained glass designs, I had to end with this one called Dragon Cave – Moonstone Dragon by South Korean deviantartist sharadhan.  A fanart for the online adoptables site Dragon Cave, I get the feeling from the artist’s caption that they weren’t completely happy with this artwork, but it really blows me away!  The stained glass and dragons are gorgeous, but that final detail of the little cat looking up at the window (at the bottom of the picture) just makes my heart melt.  You can see more awesome dragons in their gallery.

So even though I’ve been doing this blogging thing for over two years now, I only just this week did the homework on how to set up my menus — and I’m really happy with the results!

If you’d like to see all of this year’s Birthstone Dragons posts together, now you can just click on the menu heading to bring you there!  Or you can peruse all of my AtoZ posts in one list, or check them out by year in the sub-menus!  I’ve even got my Writing Thoughts & Quotes posts all in one place, finally — and that was certainly inspirational, going back and looking at all my previous posts on writing!

Next week is a short post so I can write another island in Finding Dragons, and then the week after that is another writing thoughts post, so stay tuned for those!  I hope everyone is having a great Pride month — thanks as always for reading, take care, and stay creative!

Image credits:
+ Dragon Birthstone SAL – June/Alexandrite by Gayle Tominaga, posting as jijikit, and created by Brittany Church of InglesideImaginarium  
+ Dragon-a-Day 121 Pearl by Candice C. Sciortino, posting as Mythka, purchased by Mekachii 
+ Dragon-a-Day 134 Moonstone by Candice C. Sciortino, posting as Mythka, purchased by Nuwame    
+ Dragon-a-Day 140 Daylight Alexandrite by Candice C. Sciortino, posting as Mythka, purchased by StardustDragon258   
+  Naku – Alexandrite by Uzag  
+ Beaded Dragon by Jessica M Douglas 
+ Pearl Dragon by squidina, design traded to Fumi-LEX  
+ Pearls and Seaweed Dragon by Lindy Briggs of How Many Dragons?  
+ Draco Vintiarth – Silver and Moonstone by Katarzyna Mielnik-Grzybowska and Mariusz Frodyma of Lunarieen Ltd.  
+ Dragon Cave – Moonstone Dragon by sharadhan