Expecting Persephone (in progress)

Drawing and block in of my current painting, "Expecting Persephone" Long way to go on it yet, but I did get the canvas covered today so I can have a better idea of where I'm going with it. The gold background will be gold leafed, I just painted it in so I could judge colors better. The ideas behind it is the story of Demeter and Persephone, except I started it before Persephone is born. Demeter of course is the goddess of the harvest and motherhood, when Persephone her daughter is taken by Hades, she eats 3 pommegranit seeds and then has to return to Hades for three months of the year, Demeter mourns her daughters absence, plunging the world into winter. My painting is an allegorical portrait built around the idea that even as we expect our babies we do so with the knowledge that as sure as the seasons, they will grow up and leave, but the expectation of loss does not diminish our love.

Continuing work on this one. I took a couple of weeks off of it, which was good because I solved some problems. Her face needed to be lengthened both to be accurate to the model and to give the figure the maturity that the story needs. Also worked on the background elements to prepare for the gold leafing and solidified the values a little more.

Started gold-leafing and realized that I'm not really that awesome at it. I need to order more to finish.

EEP! I might be done! Going to let it sit for a week and see if anything else needs to be done.