A brief history of this piece-- The panel started off with a wretched red/sienna background and a circle masked out. I did not like it and shoved the panel to one side for a couple years. I rediscovered the reddish panel in June while looking for uncompleted projects. I had a bunch of blue and black paint left over from the "Sari Selene" piece so that determined the new color scheme. The starfield was pretty quick. The planet took a day or two of little tiny brushstrokes. Okay, blue planet, indigo starfield.....couldn't think of anything else to do with it so back into storage it went. Now it's Thursday. I'm at a stopping point of a sunset / beach painting and I'm looking for something else to do. Then I remembered a promise I'd made for the son of an old flame. When I asked Alex what he'd like as a painting, he said "A dragon...In space." That was months ago and I'd not fulfilled that commission. Now looked like the time. I was going to use "Golden Planet" but that was acrylic and oil looks awful on an acrylic base. That was when I spotted Blue Planet. A quick flurry of white lines laid out the dragon. Painting the dragon was fairly quick-- a couple hours yesterday, an hour today. Still hafta do a few minor tweaks but that can wait until tomorrow. Then let the piece sit for a week and ship to Alex in Iowa.