For Artemis - #ColorfulSummer

Where I live in Canada, quarantine and lockdown orders have had a major effect on my life. On the one hand, I lost my job two days before mandatory lockdown in my province, my schooling was shifted to completely online, and I’ve had my fair share of cabin fever.

However, on the other hand, this break from the fast-paced living that I am used how has allowed me to reconnect with my faith and expand my interests in ways I had never actually tried before. One of these new-found interests in particular has made up for the lack of money and ability to shop freely during this time: Art.

About a month into worshipping one of my patrons, Artemis, I decided to draw her a piece to leave by her altar as an offering! As such, this is my entry on behalf of the Artemis chat for the #ColorfulSummer chat challenge!

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I wanted my concept to cover was Artemis, as well as the summer nature that I associate her with. My immediate idea was to draw a deer to represent Artemis, as this is one of her main animal associations relating to the myth of Actaeon.

So first, I began with a sketch of a deer using a B pencil in my sketchbook, then I shaded it so I could get a general idea of the lighting for when I coloured it later on:

For the summery-nature part of my concept, as well as trying to get a little mystical, I settled on the idea of decorating the deer’s antlers with flowers, vines, and moss. This was instead of going the typical route of putting the deer in nature.

Once i had the various plants drawn onto the antlers, I drew a quick circular border around the deer to play in as the background layer on. Again to add to the mystical quality and to provide a bit more nature effect outside of the deer itself, I added doodles to the edges of the background:

Not knowing how the outcome of colouring would end up (I’m still pretty new at this), I signed and scanned the finished black-and-white sketch:

Finally, I got into colouring. For colouring, I used Crayola pencil crayons front their 100-colour pack before g it off once more:

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This piece will soon be next to Artemis’ altar, and I look forward to having it there.

Until next time!

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Background is courtesy of Giphy