Atargatis⠀

 Atargatis⠀
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I hope everyone had a Happy MerMay!!⠀
When I thought about attempting MerMay 2019 I thought back to my first attempt last year. In 2018 I struggled to complete a simple sketch per day based off a silly pun concept. While some of my sketches turned out okay, I was not truly pleased with any of the results and I ended up quitting half way through. ⠀
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I wanted 2019 to be a different learning experience. I began with formulating an idea for an epic piece involving a mermaid, dragon and a lion. It was going to be a dramatic scene and maybe I'll still draw that one day... After thinking for a while I decided to just google "mermaid" and I started reading Wikipedia. (Okay not the best place to find ideas, but it was something).⠀
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Atargatis caught my attention immediately. Quoted: "The first stories appeared in ancient Assyria, in which the goddess Atargatis transformed herself into a mermaid out of shame for accidentally killing her human lover. Atargatis or Ataratheh was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical antiquity. Doves and fish were considered sacred to her: doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters."⠀
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As I continued reading the stories I happened upon an interesting artifact that caught my interest:⠀
"The reverse of a coin from Cyrrhestica depicts Atargatis riding a lion, wearing a mural crown, and holding a sceptre."⠀
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~And my imagination filled in the rest. I referenced some images, took a few of my own, made a sketch and spent hours to digitally paint this. I'd like to call it completed, but I'm just not sure. Let me know what you think and where I can improve. ⠀
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Thank you to my lovely patrons who made this artwork possible⠀
<3 Corinne⠀
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https://www.patreon.com/CorinneHansen⠀