Dragon Art by John Howe

John Howe is a Canadian illustrator and concept designer, born in 1957 in Vancouver, British Columbia. After high school he moved to Strasbourg, France, to study at the École des Arts Décoratifs, and he has spent most of his career in Europe, where he lives in Switzerland.

Howe is best known for his paintings of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. He has said that the Brothers Hildebrandt's Tolkien calendars inspired him as a teenager, and he went on to paint Tolkien calendars, book covers, and illustrations of his own. He also redrew the maps for editions of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. With fellow illustrator Alan Lee, he was one of the chief conceptual designers for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and he returned for The Hobbit films. He later worked as a concept designer on Amazon's The Rings of Power.

Dragons are a recurring subject in his work. He illustrated Anne McCaffrey's A Diversity of Dragons (1997) and wrote Forging Dragons (2008), a book about drawing and painting them. Other books include Myth and Magic: The Art of John Howe (2006), Fantasy Drawing Workshop (2009), and several children's picture books.

Howe's art is grounded in history. His knights wear armor that looks like it could really be worn, his landscapes feel old and lived in, and his dragons are huge, heavy, and dangerous, often shown from dramatic angles that make the viewer feel very small.