Michael Whelan

National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe Part One: What if there really were creatures on other planets?

Yes! We ran two newsletter features on it. Here's the one with all the aliens:

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/national-g...

We identified 12 shootings by federal agents that led to the deaths or injuries of citizens & immigrants since Sept.

Nearly every time, the Trump admin blamed the injured and dead. Experts say this apparent lack of accountability demands that local authorities step up to investigate federal agents.

Preliminary concept for GLIMPSE featuring the same design as the final painting except the young woman has long blonde hair.

Detail from GLIMPSE featuring a young woman in a short lavender dress sitting with one knee under her and her other leg flared to the side. As she rests her weight comfortably on one arm, palm planted on the sand, her eyes settle on a red glass heart that she slowly draws across the sand by a string.

Figure detail from GLIMPSE featuring a young woman with dark hair that falls silky straight to her shoulders. She wears a short lavender dress that dips at the neck. Hanging unevenly over her clavicle is silver smiley face pendant on a lavender cord. Her expression is a contrast, eyes pressed closed with no hint of a smile. She's looking down to the smooth sand where she drags a red glass heart by the ribbon.

While focused on the heart, she has turned her back to the light of Beauty and Hope behind the wall. 2/2

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/gl...

A young woman in a short lavender dress sits with one knee under her and her other leg flared to the side. As she rests her weight comfortably on one arm, palm planted on the sand, her eyes settle on a red glass heart that she slowly draws across the sand by a string. A crack in the concrete wall behind her casts a sliver of light onto the sand. Through the tall meandering crack calm water can be seen in the distance. The crack splits the corner of a yellow triangle painted point down and worn. In the upper right, five-pointed white stars that carry off panel form an arc over eroding blue paint. A sign on the left reads "Armenia" but is cut off at the R. Rust stains trail from holes in the paneled concrete. Among the debris along the base of the wall is a rusty anchor and a broken ladder resting on its side.

GLIMPSE (1992)

Acrylic on Canvas - 48" x 36"



I think this is the first time I used the red glass heart as a symbol for the immediate and/or material possessions. ½

#art

A lot of people say AI isn't very good for the world and its outputs are routinely unreliable, but these haters fail to see how it's revolutionizing how we incinerate schoolchildren.

Cover art for Forest of the Pygmies, part of the Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar series by Isabel Allende, featuring a crocodile and a leopard twisting around each other with water splashing around them

Here's the final piece of cover art I made for the new edition of the Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar Series by Isabel Allende. This is for the third and final book, Forest of the Pygmies!

Many thanks to AD Lucia Baez

Here’s a cover I illustrated for the upcoming D&D book, Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. It was such a joy to paint Strahd again 🦇
Art director: AJ Hanneld

Wow! This is at 10K with live auction just starting. Looks like it'll be some time before it comes up. Lot 46327 and they're on 46128.

live.ha.com/live.zx?sale...

Original art framed in dark wood trimmed in gold.

...and intricately textured from the dragon’s scales to the crags of stone.

Michael Whelan’s dragons are few and far between. Don’t miss this rare opportunity. 4/4

www.michaelwhelan.com/shop/gift-fr...

Cover for DRAGONCON 25TH ANNIVERSARY program book (2011)

Michael originally painted this for his 2005 calendar, but revised the central figure for DragonCon’s 25th Anniversary in 2011, when he was the Artist Guest of Honor. The result—used for the program book and commemorative poster—brought to life a serene, sea-side ritual that is beautifully lit...3/4

Cover of DRAGONS & MYSTICS: THE ART OF MICHAEL WHELAN, 2005 Calendar

Two later paintings were of his own imagining, created for the Dragons & Mystics calendar. As you would expect, they are rich in story detail despite having no book attachment. Universes await birth on the tip of Michael Whelan’s brush. 2/4

Wearing a tan cloak with red trim, a woman with long brown hair stands next to a scaly green dragon. Perched on the rocky seashore, it curls its long slender tail and spreads its wings over her. A spiky conch-like shell hovers over her outstretched palm, casting a radial aura that illuminates them both. Reverently, her other hand is held to her chest as her eyes are cast up. Behind them, an outcrop of dark rock projects up on diagonals that mirror the shore they stand on. The backdrop mostly blocks out a night sky painted in a gradient of blue to purple. Two crescent moons spaced far apart are visible in the break between the rocks.

GIFT FROM THE SEA (2011)
Acrylic - 27” x 24 ½”

There are few subjects that captivate fantasy readers as much as a Whelan dragon. In total he painted 20 draconic covers, the bulk of those for Anne McCaffrey (9) and Melanie Rawn (7). 1/4

Original art framed in scaled black moulding with copper highlight and gold inner lip hand-painted by the artist.

This small original painting is now available in our shop while it lasts:

www.michaelwhelan.com/shop/deathwi...

2/2

Preliminary concept for the Cataclysm expansion of World of Warcraft featuring the dragon Deathwing emerging explosively from the ocean as waves rock the surface. Fire erupts white hot at its mouth, tapering to red and blue at its tip. Burning contrails arc like flares from the water. A massive billowing cloud of smoky orange builds in the background. Water drips from its wings as they spread wide colored like magma between structural ribs. A reptilian fin of the same orange runs underneath its stocky neck.

DEATHWING: THE DESTROYER
Preliminary concept for World of Warcraft
Acrylic - 8” x 11”

Michael Whelan has painted a variety of dragons in his career, but none match the fury and destructive power of Deathwing. Commissioned by Blizzard Entertainment for the massively popular online RPG. 1/2

Concept for ELRIC DEMONSLAYER matted in black and framed in gold.

Preliminary concept for ELRIC DEMONSLAYER. Elric's clothes are torn to shreds but he stands victorious straddling a green scaled demon with Stormbringer drawn back over his head ready to deal the killing blow.

The auction for the Elric Demonslayer prelim ends tonight at Heritage. I believe the live session starts at 7pm. Should be a fun watch. Current bid is $3,625 so it seems to be on track for a big result. ~ME

comics.ha.com/itm/original...

A black dragon with flame smoldering in its mouth and lines of magma burning between its scales spreads mighty wings as it emerges from the ocean. Water spirals and froths, rising at opposite edges of the panel with the massive displacement of the dragon rising. The rib supports of its wings are thick and spiked, but the flesh between is tattered and showing through at the edge of its wings. A cloud of orange billowing smoke rises behind. Lines of fiery debris launch in random directions. A spire of rock rises from the ocean as a tiny figure perches atop faces the massive beast.

Tomorrow (March 4, 11am ET) we’re offering a pair of dragon paintings including a preliminary for DEATHWING from World of Warcraft as commissioned by Blizzard Entertainment.

A preview is now available for our paid subscribers on Substack:

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/world-of-w...

The Disappearance of Young Adult Books and Services in Public Libraries: Book Censorship News, February 20, 2026 Teen collections in public libraries are disappearing. So, too, are professionals dedicated to serving this demographic.

Book banners are trying to create a world in which no one is able to imagine living lives different from their own

Book cover for KINGDOM OF CAGES by Sarah Zettel, published by Warner Aspect

This personal work later became the cover for Kingdom of Cages by Sarah Zettel. 3/3

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/re...

Detail from THE REACH featuring a vast chamber lined with concrete panels. A redheaded woman hangs suspended from iron rings in sideways T pose. With her free arm, she reaches down toward a hazy band of mist below.

Figure detail from THE REACH featuring a woman gripping an iron ring to hang suspended horizontally. The background behind her evokes a huge concrete chamber. Her red hair spills downward obscuring her face from the nose up as she looks downward. She wears white tights and a white billowy top. The sleeve on the arm gripping the ring piles at her shoulder exposing her skin while her hood hangs loosely with her bottom sleeve.

I had to have a third person hold her from rotating out of perspective.

The chains are still hanging in the middle of my studio, but the other paintings I intended to follow this one are still in my head waiting to come out. 2/3

In a vast chamber lined with square concrete panels, a woman grips an iron ring to hang suspended in a sideways T. A taut chain extends from the ring on a diagonal down to another metal loop where she anchors her bare feet. Gravity tugs on her fiery orange hair as she reaches down to touch a broad band of mist. The hood of her loose white top spills down as do both sleeves, one bunching at the shoulder to expose her arm—her torso prevents it from falling farther—while unobstructed the other sleeve billows loosely. There is some curvature to the wall behind her, which tapers inward at the top. Boards are tacked in staggered lines extending ladder-like up the wall. A grungy tactile delight, the place looks weathered with tattered cloth draping the concrete in places. A variety of openings are covered by rusty grates or metal plates.

THE REACH (1999)
Acrylic on Canvas - 48” x 30”

Almost a Lumen painting, in which figures are trying to work their way out of enclosed spaces and get into the light.

I used a model for this one and it was quite difficult for her to take this pose and hold it long enough to capture the gesture. 1/3

Sorry, had to repost this because it went out prematurely as I was assembling the thread. Figured everyone would want to read the missing chunks of text. 🤦‍♂️

A woman in white robes kneels on the sand before an ancient archway. She is bathed in morning light that shines through. The abbey ruins around her include a fallen statue to the left and a pair of still standing statues set adjacently in high relief at the stub of a ruined pillar. Her red hair falls in a single braid down her back. Her robes trail across the sand to the edge of a shallow pool of water. The sky on the horizon is a line of purple that eventually gives way to blue punctuated occasionally by stars. A flame encased in a glass sphere floats above the ruins, high overhead and slightly behind her.

One of the layers of meaning behind my Passage paintings is the passage from one state of mind to another…and that’s often what my mind is doing while I’m painting them.

It gets hard on my back though, if I forget to get up occasionally and stretch or walk around a bit. 5/5

PASSAGE TO THE SUN (2006) by Michael Whelan. Acrylic on Panel 10" x 8". A view from inside a ruined abbey. A transparent sphere containing a single flame floats past a rough stone doorway, up a set of stairs, and out to open air beyond. The ground cover in the foreground is lush grass with a sprinkling of white wildflowers. A high wall obscures the view to the right as the low wall opposite gives way to a violet clouded sky with the warm tint of sunset. The stone is rougher—less uniform in size with more structural erosion—around the arch of the doorway lending a contrast to smoother stone blocks leading up to it.

Once the general shape of a stone wall is determined and laid in, the actual painting of the stones becomes, for me, a meditative act. When doing that sort of work, I’m either playing classical music or hypnotic electronic trance music— and the hours just float by.😉 4/5

TOTEM CHATHAM (1992) by Michael Whelan. Acrylic - 12” x 9”. Split at the top, a driftwood branch stands vertically against a cream colored background. Blue string wraps the wood in a random tangle, tying found objects to the totem. A circular hollow intersects the lightning bolt shaped of the split. A little below it a green glass heart sits in another hallow, asymmetrical and shadowed. A gray feather and a round, aging copper tag green with patina are strung to the right. Below a seashell hangs from the string.

That left a significant impression on me, as one can see with certain works I’ve done that have either extremely sharp focus [Totem paintings] or detailed, almost repetitive shapes [my Portals paintings]. 3/5

I stared at it for many hours. I could scarcely believe they were created by human hands. (This reproduction doesn’t do it justice IMHO.)

In an article about him, I read that he aimed to paint a square inch a day, and that for him, his dedicated focus was a form of meditation as he worked. 2/5

Ah, yes I was!

When I was in college, I discovered the artwork of Bill Martin. I was amazed at the psychedelic, intense level of detail in his paintings.

This is the first Martin painting I ever saw. It’s 20” in diameter or so. The butterfly and ants on the rock are life sized!! 1/5

I’m eager to get back to doing that, but my studio is a mess and I need to clean up a bit before I can freely experiment in that fashion again. But I will! 4/4

Vague shapes or negative spaces suggest things, and then my imagination takes over. If I don’t like the direction something seems to be going in then with a swipe of a brush or rag it can be transformed into some new shape and I can go in a different direction. What’s not to like? 😉 3/4

But for just exploring and having fun with shapes without any strong preconceived directions, oils work best for me.

It’s the most malleable medium that doesn’t involve a computer; one can apply the paint in all sorts of ways,  and wipe off areas as needed during the process. 2/4

The different intents brought into a creative effort vary from piece to piece. Yes, there are times when I feel the need to sharpen up a pencil and work with the definition and linear contours of a line drawing. 1/4