Thursday, September 9, 2010

Zeus - Watercolor Pencil and Ink

So I wanted to do a drawing for my week with researching and learning about Zeus. So I found an image off www.theoi.com of Zeus from a vase and decided to try and give it a shot. It seems that the majority of early paintings of Zeus were pretty simple and not too complicated.

My version seems to have turned out a bit cartoony, but all in all, not the white haired dude chillin' on Mt. Olympus that I had imagined.

I'm not a drawer or painter by any stretch of the imagination, but I wanted to try anyways.


First come the mediocre sketches with a #2 pencil.



Then, I picked the wider one vs. the taller so you could see his arms. And I started filling in with water color pencils.



....and promptly remembered I should have outlined in ink first.



Continuing with the colored pencils, dseciding on this orange for the background because I thought it was a good "vase" color.



This is the picture all colored in with watercolor pencils.


The picture after the brushes did their pass over the pigment.

I really do like how it turned out, despite the cartoony nature of it. But I got some good insight into Zeus and I really think he appreciates the effort I put in to try and understand him.

6 comments:

  1. I'd love to see a link to the vase you based it on, but I really like this.

    EDIT: never mind, I see it there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like it, and the comicbooky-ness isn't so bad. Especially for me since I grew up on Disney movies and Hercules has since prejudiced my viewpoint, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is the very image that Pam selected to represent Zeus for her in our temple. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Skylark - I am totally with you...I loved the Disney Hercules movie and was totally ruined by it! :-p

    @Michel - It was my favorite depiction of Zeus. It was so unlike the white haired dude I was so used to seeing in my brain.

    ReplyDelete
  5. thanks everyone for coming by to check it out!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is good! Good job!

    And I like the fact that you did it as a way to understand Zeus. I need to get around to finally starting to do that.

    ReplyDelete