The Chronead

This is an illustration for Nyki Blatchley's story "The Chronead," appearing in the anniversary issue of Dark Valentine magazine. (It is also, alas, the last issue as well. You can download it here.) It's about a time-traveling nymph who whisks her modern-day lover back to the first century BC to meet Cleopatra and her two ladies-in-waiting, Charmian and Iras, and manages to change history. (You can read an interview with the author over at Stephanie Dray's blog: [link] )

There is actually a bit of an art nouveau influence in this-- I modelled Cleopatra after one of Mucha's Moet et Chandon girls. I figured it would give her a suitably regal and exotic air, but I could still keep her in suitably Greek/Hellenistic clothes. (Yes, Cleopatra, in reality, did not dress like Anne Baxter from "The Ten Commandments," or any other Hollywood movie Egyptian for that matter. She was a Greco-Egyptian, like an inbred royal version of the folks seen off the Faiyum mummy portraits.)

This is a very mixed media piece. For once I didn't use acrylic-- I used inks, pens, colored pencils and goauche.