From the winged, scaley fire-breathing serpent of ancient European folklore, to the more snakelike Asian magical creature representing wisdom and longevity, the mythical dragon has captured the imaginations of people across the globe for centuries.

And dragons were very much on the mind of Steve Light when he was a kid. He imagined them all over the city, under the streets, riding the subway trains, lurking around the jungle gyms in the playground…

To illustrate a fun story about City Dragons in Manhattan, Steve needed only to look around him for inspiration. His own neighborhood is rich with iconic city images – sidewalks, parking meters, traffic lights, newsstands, buildings, water towers, bridges, fire hydrants, street vendors…

In yesterday's post Steve shared a few of his new City Dragons illustrations that he drew on the archival scrapbook-style pages of a Kolo Cortina Lux photo album. Today we’re treated to a few more. Feast your eyes.

For the drawings that I colored, I used Rembrandt half-stick pastels – the same kind that I showed in a recent post on Koloist about a pastel box that I hacked from a Kolo Cortina Lux photo album. I like these half pastels because they’re smaller, so you get more in a box for less money, and they come without the paper on them, which I find a pain to peel off. I like the Rembrandts because they’re a bit harder than many pastels, so the color goes down over ink lines better.

To see more City Dragons illustrations and other Kolo photo album projects including several by artist/illustrator/toymaker/teacher extraordinaire Steve Light, go here.

Steve Light’s most recent book, Trucks Go, just became available for sale at Amazon and Chronicle Books, where you can also find other children's books by Steve Light, including Puss In Boots and The Shoemaker Extraordinaire.