The Return of Persephone

Persephone, in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest. Persephone was so beautiful that she was loved by all, even Hades. Hades abducted Persephone and made her his wife. Demeter withdrew into a depression, and the Earth became infertile. Therefore Zeus ordered Hermes to the underworld to rescue her, but not until after she had consumed the pomegranate seeds that bound her to the underworld. She was forever forced to spend 1/3 of the year in the underworld, but the rest of the year with her mother. Spring of each year marks the return of Persephone to her mother.

** 2/23/2013: in response to a request for print, I have updated the main file. I have always felt my signature on this drawing was too large and sloppy. I had signed in Sharpie, but luckily it was on top of several layers of color pencil, and so I was able to remove my signature by removing layers of colored pencil. I then re-applied the colored pencil, and put a more demure signature in a better location. Also, the scan was done by a better scanner, and the edges were cropped more cleanly in this new image file. Watermark has also been removed for print reasons. Hopefully nobody steals it.

Materials used
11x14 Bristol Vellum
graphite pencils HB-6B
colored pencils (Lyra and Prismacolor)

Reference: fav.me/dfwhhc
WIP: fav.me/d5buxp2

This is my first (real) attempt at using colored pencils. I think I did okay, but I have a LOT to learn with color. I nearly ran out of "Lime Peel" green pencil.
9 days