From the Sketchbook: Persephone....

   Ever since the first hearing of her story I've had a soft spot in my heart for poor Persephone (I even dressed as her for Halloween one year) and her mother Demeter...even though Persephone unwittingly screws everything up by eating those pomegranate seeds.  Okay, I just started with the ending, rewind:

   Demeter is the goddess of harvest and nature, she controls all growing things.  She has a beautiful free spirited daughter, Persephone.  One day Persephone is picking flowers in a field and Hades (who is technically her Uncle, eww) becomes infatuated with her and steals her to the underworld.  Well, Demeter is understandable distraught and goes to Zeus and pleads for him to intervene...and he agrees that Hades should return Persephone to Demeter on one condition, Persephone cannot eat any fruit from the garden.  Before Persephone hears of this she opens up a beautiful pomegranate and eats 6 seeds from it.  The compromise is for 6 months Persephone has to stay in the Underworld and the other 6 months she is with her mother Demeter. And that is why in the fall everything goes to sleep and leads to an unfruitful winter and then nature awakens again in Spring and Summer.  I did a quick little stylized illustration with prismacolor marker of Persephone about to unwittingly break this unknown rule.  I just told this whole story from memory and may have forgotten some details, if you're interested in more go here.

In other news:  To those paying attention I've been gone for 21 days....no I don't have some dramatically good excuse like I was in traction after a horrible car crash and I'm thankful for that.  Life just got in the way, I moved into a new apartment and there have been constant changes and activities this whole summer and I'm VERY easily distracted.  I'm not sure if I'll continue to do this blog daily even though it's called Every DAY is Fantastic, because I really need to devote some more energy to new projects and schemes.   This has been very fun though, and I may try to make it a bi-weekly occurrence instead.

Disney Style Chimera

In Greek Mythology the Chimera is a fire breathing creature with the body of a lioness, a tail that ends with a snakes head and a goat's head coming out of it's back.  It's siblings are Cerberus and the Hydra.   The term Chimera has developed a more general meaning of "impossible" or "foolish" fantasy.  There is also something known as a genetic Chimera where one organism can have multiple sets of genes, which is utterly fascinating to me, a person who is a Chimera is technically more than one person, there is much more to it and if you want to learn about chimerism go here.  I started drawing this Chimera in the style I used for my alphabet, but then I had a lightbulb go off...a lion, a goat, a snake....those were all in Disney movies right?  And so I made a Disney-fied Chimera, because that's the kind of thing crazy people who draw do, lol.

Quiet Moment for Athena

Athena is the Goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, war and agriculture.  Of course popular culture tends to focus on her warlike side...however one of my favorite stories about Athena involves the young maiden Arachne.  Arachne was said to be the best weaver and even claimed to be better than Athena herself! Of course Athena challenged Arachne and when she lost to Arachne she became enraged and beat Arachne with the shuttle of her loom and Arachne hung herself with it.  When Athena realised what she had done she felt remorse and sorrow and brought the girl back to life as a spider and to this day her daughters weave and spin all over the earth.  This is why we call spiders arachnids.  In hid a daughter of Arachne in this drawing.  Also, I have included a young owl which is a symbol of her wisdom.

The Weight of the World...

Atlas was one of the three Titans who attempted to overthrow the Gods of Olympus and failed, his punishment was too bear the weight of the world on his shoulders for eternity...keep this in mind next time you feel life is unfair and difficult...it could be worse, at least the weight of the world isn't literally on your shoulders.

In other news I'm going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art tomorrow, it's been awhile and I can't wait to see the new exhibits as well as some of my old favorites like the Grecian statues which this drawing reminded me of...maybe I should bring my sketch pad and pencils.

"U" is for Unicorn...

Who didn't see that one coming? According to wikipedia "A unicorn (from Latin unus 'one' and cornu 'horn') is a mythological creature described as having a long, straight horn extending from its forehead." Well, really who doesn't know that? Something I didn't know however was that Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology...they are found in Greek natural history, because the Greeks were absolutely convinced Unicorns were real and living in India.

"S" is for Satyr

For today's letter I chose Satyr, but I took some liberties...namely I chose to go with the Roman adaptation of Satyrs into more faun like creatures rather than the original more horse like Satyrs from the Greeks....mainly because it is the more popular version and I have already drawn a Centaur.