"Dance of Balance 2: Final design" by Rachael Mayo

Here's what I finally developed for the background after a great deal of experimentation. Originally it was going to be much more like the earlier work Creating Balance with a starfield and round shapes and stuff...

...But in the end, I realized that it wasn't going to work - I needed to simplify the background down to the most basic elements. This is what worked best visually - it fills the space, gives you an idea of structure and stars, and doesn't totally distract you from the high-chroma tangle of dragons. Booyah.

The dragons are comprised of watercolor and Prismacolor pencil on bristol board.

The background is made up of pastel paper (a roughened, pre-colored paper about the same weight as cardstock) which I covered in several layers of acrylic paint and gel medium to give it shinyness and texture - up close, the brush strokes make it look like three different kinds of wood. There are shiny bits, too, and that round thing is an old earring I dug up from my collection of tacky garage-sale jewelry.

There you go.