Happy Bday Traditional Card

I did this for Sifu George Kee of the Wah Lum Northern Praying Mantis Kung Fu in northern Orlando, Florida. It was sometime last week but I just finished it last night.

I had an idea to cutout a mat board and frame it to then send it to him but I don't have money to do that.

I traced the actual outlines like six times. First on my sketchbook, then on tracing paper, inked tracing paper, pencil the back of tracing paper, trace on to the Bristol, then micron ink the actual one.

Chinese calligraphy from dictionary.com. I translated Happy Birthday to Chinese (traditional) and this is what came out. I visualized I was doing it with the actual brush and brush strokes.

Design inspired by tattoo designs. I did minor studies in the actual designs but I've done a lot since this pic so I understand what is happenning now with the abstractions and stylizations.

My dragon may not be the baddest dragon drawn but the design easily communicates the designs


Pentel 0.9 and 0.7 mech pencils, .005 micron, Prismacolor markers and color pencils, red and black (fine ) sharpie (I won't use the sharpies for this work for a while, look at the altar board and see why)

aprox. 7" x 9" actual, entire brsitol board: 9" x 12"