Newest Illustrations

It finally came to me over the Easter weekend, how to organize my portfolio.
I'll combine my first two loves, Mythology and drawing. My Illustrations will be focusing on iconographic retelling of my favorite various myths.

So these two are my latest additions, to go with with The Return of Helios, and Cad Zeus.

I've had a heck of a time uploading these, so I'll skip the narratives for now.

Hope you like them. (Hint, click on the image for a larger view)

The Opening of Pandora's Box
Ooops! Pandora's box has been cropped and is missing the crown (indicating Zeus' involvement) over the mountain (representing the rest of the Olympians involvement) in loosing Pandora and her box on humanity.

I'll try to repair that soon.


Aphrodite and Eros, the foam born

I was struck by the geometric shapes traced in the night sky by the transit of venus every eight years. I tried to incorporate that geometric diversity into Aphrodite and Eros. See last spring's entries on this subject.

2005_03_01_artco_archive

venus_dala

Art inspired by the Transit of Venus

These two digital sketches are works in progress. I was inspired by the eight year transit of Venus

Venus By Anne Lathrop

Take a look at the accompanying geometric representation of the planet Venus' trajectory over an eight year period. This shows the unfathomable beauty of a Great Artist's hand at work. Perhaps by meditating on this image, we can connect to a new element of the Venusian principle: the rational harmony and natural relationship so readily evident in all the rest of nature.

*Illustration credit: “Movement and Rhythm of the Stars” Joachim Schultz, copyright 1963, Florin Books. Fig. 97, pg. 131.

The basic design contains numerous other designs, ever coalescing into new patterns. Triangles become squares become, octagons become, flowers become, birds become, hearts, become trees, become stars, and so on. An inexhaustable well of combinations to draw on, but alwaysalwaysys beauty. Very apropo for the planet of love, beauty and harmony.

I find myself wanting to experiment, play with its forms, see if I can gently coax out imagery of this planet, this goddess, this energy.


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Update: March 1, 2006

After more than a year of casually studying Venus; the planet, the goddess, the myths I've discovered a common denominator of each Goddess ascribed to the bright planet.
Duality.

With the near exception of Aphrodite, all of the goddesses associated with the planet Venus were represented by at least two if not three aspects.

Isis, Ishtar, Innana, were all goddesses of love marriage and sex, on one hand, and determined goddesses of war and death on the other.

Aphrodite narrowly escapes this duality unless considering she seems to have been "born" with Eros, o the spite of Lust. (And not corporeal until later epochs of Greek myth.) A "Spite" meant a wicked spirit such as those that escaped from the opening of Pandora's box.

Her jealousy, not as famous as Hera's was just as sadistic and cruel. While not assigned a specific role for her rriotousss urges like her counter parts in other cultures, Aphrodite becomes prone to vindictive pranks and petty rivalries with mortal and immortalal alike.

The Hellenistic Greeks were an emerging patriarchy from the ashes of the old religions of matriarchy. I suspect this is why Eros eventually takes on the appearance ancharacteristicscs of a male youth. However the bow and arrow was vestigialal memory of the goddess, being yet another one of her inventions and a clue to Eros's relationship to the goddess; Servitude.