Marilyn Monroe Aphrodite

Digital painting for print. Completed recently. Marilyn Monroe pictured as Aphrodite or Venus. This is an appropriate depiction, as Marilyn has certainly become an enduring Love Goddess. To create this picture I harvested several Marilyn images from Bing. The final figure composition stitched together several different historical photographs to create an image that pleased me. Her famous pose came from one picture, face from another, hair from the third reference photograph. The shell came from Botticelli's "Venus". While repainting the low resolution shell, I was gained more appreciation for Botticelli's artistic genius. The wave inspiration came from the famous, ancient Japanese wave painting. I experienced a frisson of delight while experimenting with the wave. I realized that by duplicating the wave and transforming it horizontally a heart shape was created. While I was distorting Marilyn's dress in the liquefy function it began to look like angel wings, and this delighted me. The two waves appear threatening, a watery heart, threatening imminent engulfment, an unintentional reference to her tragic demise. It was a lot of fun to create this picture.