Sometimes I like to think that I’m a bit of a metalhead. Then Eleanor makes fun of me for it and I realize how square I really am.

Lately, I’d been feeling the itch to try to do something a little bit different. Most all of my “professional art career” I’ve always been playing the role of working within someone else’s style. So I’ve been trying to make it a point to set aside time to do some personal work. Some self indulgent explorations if you will. So in a fit of feeling a little bit like a metalhead something kinda clicked.

To make a long story short, a friend of mine has thought that Mother Medusa was the most badass name for anything that ever was. It turns out to be the name of a hot rod in a modern day B movie that he had watched. I have yet to watch the film, but to me the name felt like something out of a neo-classical painting. For some reason I found myself thinking about it and a couple of visuals popped into my mind. After some image searching I found the proper paintings that I had been thinking of. Two very similar pieces by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Queen of Angels and Virgin with the Lily. Since both of these paintings are very religious I looked to the work of Becky Cloonan and Jeanne D’Angelo to help me “darken” it up a bit. I thought I was done with it and then Eleanor told me to put some flames on it. Now I’m just left struggling with how Medusa got pregnant in the first place.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Virgin with the Lily”.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Queen of Angels”

Promo art for the band “The Sword” by Becky Cloonan

“Medusa” by Jeanne D’Angelo