tie my heartstrings

♫ The magnificent, marvelous, mad, mad, mad, mad Madam Mim! ♫ 

“Spring in the Underworld” -  I was playing around with the ideas of the softness and darkness contrast in my work and I realised that there was no better place to explore this than the myth of Persephone and Hades, the former of which particularly inhabits both qualities. ⁠

I sketched my thumbnail before reading up on the mythology proper and I was rather dismayed – and pleased – to find my interpretation turned it slightly on its head. I didn’t want to portray the abduction or Persephone sitting in Hades’ lap. I wanted to show her worshipped in his own kingdom. Him falling on his knees before her as she tears into the pomegranates greedily, sitting upon her throne of gnarled dead trees, herself a contrast of life in a desolate place. ⁠ Patreon members will get a process video and look behind the scenes!