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I developed an oil monster character illustration over the past week.  The initial concept came from what has been happening recently in the Gulf of Mexico.  Initially, the intent was to create a dark and evil menace which was killing everything in its path, except the process of drawing, digitization and coloring left the character decidedly ‘beautiful’.  Years of being inspired by Mucha must have left a mark on my style.  Instead of changing the drawing, I decided to amend the concept to suggest that our unquenchable addiction to oil turns the oil monster into a thing of beauty.  It is an Oil Siren.  We need her, we love her, we cannot stop burning her or forming her into plastics.  We are powerless to her siren calls.  The Oil Siren is so entrenched in our society that we cannot break our addiction and will destroy ourselves in the process.  She could be a contemporary version of the legendary siren myths from antiquity.

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