Platypus of Truth

Taking another shot at the Red Bull from "The Last Unicorn" with my toned paper this time. The figure of the Red Bull is one of the most fascinating symbols in the book. What is its range of meanings? Is it the disenchanting force of greed? of reason? of secularism? It seems as though the Bull is Fire and the Unicorn is Water, but what does that mean? As with all fairy tales, we don't need to know for the tale to speak to us. As Tennyson said of the Three Queens in his "Idylls of the King": "They are Faith, Hope, and Charity, but they are also more than that". If the Bull is a true mythic symbol, then it means more that any one meaning we could reduce it to.

Here I am putting my brown paper to its proper use. This is a sketch for what will hopefully become a pastel drawing on black paper of the Lady Amalthea and the wizard Mabruk from Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn .

Sketches for a pastel composition of Lady Amalthea confronting the wizard Mabruk in Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn .

Reading "The Last Unicorn" with the Mrs. This is my first attempt at one of the iconic moments in the book where the Unicorn first encounters the Red Bull of King Haggard. It's a colored pencil sketch that will hopefully serve as a preliminary to a later pastel drawing. Art work has been difficult for the past few months, so I'm glad to finally be well enough to get anything out.