Scheherazade - Daily Painting
“Scheherazade” 6.5″ x 7.25″
Click to Bid on Ebay
It’s Nibblefest time of month - the opportunity to bid on an original piece of art starting at 99 cents.
This illustration is doing double duty for “Gravity” for Illustration Friday. Read on and you’ll understand the gravity of Scheherazade’s situation.
Scheherazade was a daughter of a vizier and was the storyteller of the classic book, A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.
As the legend goes, the King of Persia had the custom of marrying a new woman every day, and executing her the next morning. Believing that she could change this pattern and save other women, Scheherazade volunteered to spend a night with the king. Every night she entertained him, and her sister with a story she made up on the spot.
(She should become known as the patron saint of Improv!)
As each morning dawned the king would beg for another story, which she said she would tell him the following night … and so her life was spared for another day.
I have portrayed her on her first day, apprehensive - her henna-stained hands clasping the soft fabric of her headdress, as though for comfort. Perhaps she is trying to hear what the king is saying to his servants so that she can spin a tale that will captivate him. Her life hangs in the balance.
After a thousand and one nights, the king had learned quite a bit about love and life and she became his beloved Queen.
Detail:
Winners of the Nibblefest activity are the ones that get the most different bids from different people - hence the “nibble” title. Why do I do this? To expose my work to more people through a group activity. This month’s theme is “Fairy Tales” so I decided to do something a little different than the Brothers Grimm.