Illustration Friday - Monster & Inspire Me Thursday - Monochromatic

The Gorgons of Greek mythology were so hideous that the mere sight of them would turn anyone who gazed their way to stone. They were, according to the poet Hesiod, so frighteningly repulsive to the senses that they "were not to be approached and not to be described." Medusa, the only one of the three who was mortal, was born beautiful with a head of luxuriant, shining hair. The lusty Poseidon took a fancy to her, and disguised as a horse, seduced her in the temple of Athena. Enraged, Athena transformed Medusa into a monster whose most common portrayal shows her once beautiful hair as a mass of writhing snakes.

Medusa

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

- Louise Bogan (1897 - 1970)

(9 x 12 - micron pen/colored in photoshop)

3/26 edit - I am also submitting this for the Inspire Me Thursday challenge to create a monochromatic piece. I had originally planned to do this completely in shades of green, but somehow a bit of greenish-orange sneaked in...