Embraced I

© Joan Lansberry, mixed media, 2014


Is this Netjer the encircling Nut, Mut? Sekhmet? Or Nit (aka Neith)?
"Sharpie" pen on 8.5 x 11in sketching paper, all the flaws left in!

Julia looked at this drawing and thought of Nit (aka Neith). Wikipedia notes:
Proclus (412–485 AD) wrote that the adyton of the temple of Neith in Sais (of which nothing now remains) carried the following inscription:
I am the things that are, that will be, and that have been.
No one has ever laid open the garment by which I am concealed.
The fruit which I brought forth was the sun.[5]

I had quite a process deciding how to color this. I first experimented with cool tones, as an inscription from the Temple of Neith and Khnum at Iunyt/Latopolis says:

You are the watery expanse,
She Who created the God of the Primaeval Mound and Who created Nun,
the Lady of the childbirth from which everything arose.

But the watery colors didn't please me. So I tried a fully warm toned version, and liked that better. But I wasn't sure. So I tried a mixed version, but didn't really like that. I asked around for opinions; some liked the warm, some liked the mixed.

I realized that what I really liked was the warm sunset (or sunrise) toned sky, so I made a mixed version, keeping that. Better, but still not quite right. I played with the colors a bit more and then finally had a template with which I was pleased!