new! Persephone

New drawing I finished on monday. Doing something I've never tried before, hopefully it doesn't bomb completely! Attempting watered down acrylic a la Sam Weber and Eric Fortune. I was originally going to just do a face, but thats just boring. So I added some branch thingies in the back... meh still boring. Been reading a lot of greek/roman mythology lately and have always been fascinated by Persephone's abduction story. Voila! Story. Added the pomegranate plant in the foreground both as symbolism and to make it more interesting. Side note... I've never actually drawn every single leaf, petal, fruit, and branch of any plant i've ever painted before ever. This was a very time consuming, discipline instilling exercise for me.

For those who don't know the story, she was abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, to be his wife. She wasn't quite fond at first, but I can't imagine any woman being too happy about going by her daily routine picking flowers with some nymph friends when all of a sudden from a fiery chasm bursts Hades on his chariot and just takes her down to his kingdom in the underworld to be his wife. Needless to say her mum Demeter wasn't too happy, so she pretty much went on goddess duty strike and let the earths agriculture and plant life go to spoils for a year or so. The Olympians struck a deal with Hades to let her come back, he agreed on the condition that she not eat any food from down below as that would permanently bind her to him. By this time, having spent so much time with Hades, she actually kind of grew fond of him. Surely after a while one would expect some bond to form. And in all fairness, Hades isn't that bad of a guy. He got the shit end of the celestial lottery. Zeus and Poseidon got to be gods of cool shit like the sky and the oceans. Underworld requires a lot more work. While Zeus and Poseidon are out and about having sex with every other mortal woman, tossing lightning bolts and causing tsunamis for shits and giggles, Hades is busy doing his job dealing with all the pesky dead people. I digress. Persephone makes her way back to earth and on the way she feels a twang of hunger and sees before her some pomegranates. So she eats a bit o the seeds and voila! instant underworld queen! Demeters not too happy about that. But in the end, the two parties agree to keep Persephone for half a year each; Mom gets her in the spring and summer, Hades in the fall and winter. So when Persephone is up here with us we get flowers and sunshine and glorious spring rains and warmth. When she goes back to hubby, everything dies because mommy's sad.

So with that... enjoy. I'll post progress of the painting soon.