Labyrinth Four

I've been on a bit of a Minoan/Mykenaean kick lately, and have been working my way through my local library's copies of Arthur Evan's The Palace of Minos at Knossos, which is in like a million volumes; I'm on the second one (part two). So I have been looking at these really lovely, crisp pen-and-ink drawings of artifacts, as well as the artifacts themselves a lot lately. This design, the bull's head and double axe, is straight from a Late Minoan jar. I rather like it, and the colors, which I chose in imitation of Minoan frescoes; though next time I think I'll use different paper. It's this matboard I have that is fine for watercolor or colored pencil, but a little too fibrous and linty for pen and ink, which scratches up the surface a bit too much.

In the process of doing this I had to clean out my pens, and for a while there could not find the special ink that goes in them; but in looking, I found a whole bunch of little teeny canvases I bought once upon a time, and pulled them out. Seriously, they're itty-bitty, four by five inches (though not as small as that drawing above, the original of which is two by three inches).

But I'm not that happy with what I came up with:

I think the proper word is meh. It started out quite promising, but the more I worked on it the less I liked it, and ended up painting over it with some white.

So though I liked that first one, altogether I'd say it was kind of a frustrating experience. I'm in some kind of transitional phase, art-wise, I think right now; and though I know the old way of doing things isn't really serving me anymore, I've no idea what the new way will be like, and I really feel like I am blundering about in the dark. More reason, I suppose, to keep at the Labyrinth imagery.

Also, and I hadn't applied this to my situation, both labrys (double axe) and bull's head are symbols of rebirth.