The Deceit of Zeus

Sorry the scan isn't very good. For drawing class, we were asked to pair together two phrases from a small list to form a title, and create a piece to go with that title. When I was looking through them the first two that stood out to me were 'The deciet of' and 'Zeus', and I immediatly thought of the story of Zeus and Europa - probably my favourite tale from Greek mythology.

Zeus becomes enamored with Europa, and transforms himself into a white bull and mixes into her father's bull herds. Europa became fond of this white bull's gentle and playful nature, and one day she climbed onto his back. Zeus took this opportunity to take her away with him, he carried her on his back and swam to the island of Crete where he ravished her.

At first I started out with a more realistic looking style, but eventually it evolved into a more simple, graphic look. I think the final is sort of a mix between the two. The final piece was painted on toned pastel paper with a limited pallette of gouache.

I think I am getting closer to what I would call my style!