NIOBE

Cover for Book 3 of Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony

Oct 18, 2024

A woman in an elegant black dress with diagonal pinstripes sits measuring a "thread of life" drawn to a narrow Z-shape extending from her lap to above her head. Behind her, reflected in golden light, is a spider web with the center focus leading to her overly large amber eyes. Her copper-blonde hair falls past her shoulders, framing her face in unruly waves, a contrast to the delicate gradations of her makeup. A white lace choker wraps low on her neck. The deep spread of her neckline is held together by support that resembles a white spider with its legs bridging the wide gap. Gold lace structures and lifts her bust-line. Her legs are folded in front of her covered by her long dress, and in her lap rests a pair of slender spindles and a long pair of shears with finger holes that resemble the eyes on a skull. Beneath her is a macrame rug with many contrasting patterns. — NIOBE (1985), Oil on Panel - 29" x 19"

Since 1975, I have worked almost exclusively in acrylics, but I still love to paint in oils.

Not long before doing this cover, I moved to a new studio that was larger and better organized than my old one, and it provided me with a space for an easel and taboret just for oils. I could have each medium in its own area to save time switching my whole setup from one to the other.

Painting detail compared with the preliminary sketch of the scissors with Death's head pattern. Woven in the pattern of the rug is the artist's sigil, a stylized M and W crossed by a diagonal inside a circle, and the year '85. — Niobe’s scissors, detail from the painting and preliminary sketch

After a ten-year hiatus, I did three oil paintings. NIOBE is the second one. She is attended by her chief attributes, a spindle and scissors with the symbolic Death's head in the pattern, and is seen measuring a glowing "Thread of Life."