When Magic Meets Mischief – Dragonbeat Series, No. 5
Zizzletail & Wispra
Original Acrylic on Canvas 18” x 24”
Unframed – $650 (Note: 1” thick canvas painted sides, frame optional)
Some paintings challenge you.
Others invite you to play.
When Magic Meets Mischief began the way Zizzletail herself did - pure spark and joy. I hadn’t planned to create a fairy that day. I just wanted to paint something fun, something that made me smile. So I returned to the splashy, intuitive style I used to love: sponge textures, drips, blotches, and whimsical colors. No rules, just curiosity.
Then suddenly… there were two.
The mischievous hatchling came first - Zizzletail, wide-eyed and wiggly as always. But as I painted, I realized someone else wanted in on the magic. A Sorcerista-Fairy began to flutter across the canvas, casting the very spark that might have brought Zizzletail to life. I named her Wispra. She appears like a whisper, silent as an owl, just long enough to infuse an egg with a dragon’s unique gift. In the Dragonbeat world, she vanishes once the hatchling is grown - but in this moment, she lingers.
Something happened as I painted the scales on Zizzletail’s face. They began to appear before I laid them down - faint impressions guiding my brush. I’ve felt this before, but rarely. It’s something artists sometimes call the “painter’s trance,” or “seeing the ghost image.” The work reveals itself, and you simply follow.
I didn’t want this painting to end. It felt like I was playing with them, caught in their joy and discovery. This piece is more than a portrait - it’s a moment of connection between magic and mischief, between origin and innocence.
This painting is for anyone who’s ever felt a spark of imagination, followed it into the unknown, and found themselves smiling the whole way through.
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About the Dragonbeat Series
 
Each Dragonbeat painting is more than art - it’s a living character. Every brushstroke brings to life a dragon with its own lore, personality, and place in the Breyerwood Sanctum, the fantasy world at the heart of Dragonbeat magazine.
 
Unlike my other paintings, these creatures don’t stop at the canvas. They step beyond it - becoming cover models, story anchors, and guardians of their own legends. With each piece, you’re not just collecting a painting, you’re adopting a character whose tale continues to grow as the Dragonbeat world unfolds.
 
That’s why these works hold a unique value. They’re part fine art, part storytelling, and part world-building - originals that exist at the crossroads of painting and myth. Owning one means holding both a piece of art and a piece of lore that will never be repeated.