Talking Pyramids

Some of you might have followed Leena’s last painting, Cleopatra & Caesarion from the back wall of the temple of Hathor at Denderah.

Utelising the power of the Internet, every few days Leena would share her latest developments with us by posting photos on her blog, Ancient Egyptian Art. Some of the difficulties experienced and the different techniques used were described which gave us insight into the painting process.

It was fun to watch over the artist’s shoulder as the work progressed over the weeks. Observers soon became involved, I was finding photos of the subject taken by past travellers and sending them to Leena and making use of Twitter to attract more attention. Another follower, Hans also sent some photos which were used as references for the piece. One interested reader, Barry even travelled to the temple for Leena specifically to take photographs of the parts of the relief that were not clear on existing photos.

In case you missed it you can read all the posts starting from here and follow it all the way to the end here.

If you have been keeping an eye on the “Breaking News” section on the right side of this blog you’ve probably already noticed Leena has started a new artwork. This time the paints have been put aside in exchange for graphite & a scraper board and she is now tackling the Old Kingdom statue of Menkaure, Hathor and goddess of the Diospolis Parva nome. The graywacke statue dates to the Fourth Dynasty, 2720 BC and is currently housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Leena describes how she started this piece:

I have to admit I could not resist – I got my scraping board and started working on the Menkaure triad already.

First the sketch: First it had to be drawn, then transferred to the scraper board (by coloring the back of the drawing with graphite and re-drawing with a sharp pen so that the drawing transferred to the board). And because graphite may wear off while I work on this, I had to use the scalpel to do tiny nicks along the lines.

Watch the slideshow below to see the art grow…

Here is a photograph of the subject:

You can continue following the development of the Menkaure Triad as Leena keeps a journal of her progress on her blog, Ancient Egyptian Art.

Photos used with Leena’s permission, all rights reserved.
Photo of the Menkaure Statue triad is in the Public Domain.

Related posts:

1. Excavations at Menkaure’s Pyramid Over the past few days I’ve been in contact with...
2. Ancient Egypt News for Saturday 19-12-09 A few stories today on the return of artefacts to...
3. Ancient Egypt News for Monday 30-11-09 Seeing a few stories on building pyramids today it seems...
4. Ancient Egyptian Games: Senet Games were, and still are, very popular in Egypt. Today...
5. Photo of the Week: Menkaure’s pyramid The Pyramid of Menkaure. Photo by Jon Bodsworth Visit the...

Tags: art, menkaure