Work in Progress: Fenris Wolf

So I've been wanting to make a big bad wolf for a little while. Not a realistic, flesh-and-blood wolf per se, but more of a symbolic wolf, an archetypal canine.  With this in mind, I decided to make the original big bad wolf: Fenris (aka Fenrir), a gigantic monstrous wolf from Norse mythology who will swallow the sun and the moon from the sky (or in some stories his offspring will), and he will kill many of the gods, including Odin.

Some folklorists theorize that later fairytales (like Grimm's "Little Red Riding Hood" for example) are part of a general solar myth cycle, with the ravening wolf representing the night swallowing the sun (when Little Red is swallowed by the Wolf this represents night, and by her being released whole from his belly by the woodcutter, she represents the Dawn).

"Fenris Wolf"
12 x 18 inches
Ink and Acrylic on Paper
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