Day 2: Favorite Animal

I refuse to choose an ordinary animal as my favorite. No dogs or cats or lizards or reindeer or "hippopatasmussesses".

I chose the phoenix.

(This choice is a combination of 1. never having owned a pet 2. loving mythology and 3. liking things that are awesome to draw.)

The phoenix is a mythological bird-- the only one of its species. It lives for 500 years, then creates a nest and ignites it, becoming engulfed with fire. A young phoenix rises from the ashes of its old self.

The phoenix is also very symbolic. It's considered a sign of immorality, rebirth, renewal, etc. It is also symbolic of Christ's Ressurection, or of the the soul at Baptism (dying to self and sin to be born in the life of Christ).

For this reason, the phoenix can be found in many early Christian manuscripts and works of art.

As many of you know, I am extremely interested in illuminated manuscripts (such as the book of Kells). This is what sparked my fascination with Celtic Knotwork and calligraphy. (I even did my research paper on it!). Anyways, I've seen the phoenix drawn in many illuminated manuscripts.

I've run into the story of the phoenix in some surprising places. In ninth grade I read the ancient Greek historian, Herodotus. He mentioned the phoenix, but his tale and description is rather different than the myth as it is known today:

Another sacred bird is the one called the phoenix. Now, I have not actually seen a phoenix, except in a painting, because they are quite infrequent visitors to the country; in fact, I was told in Heliopolis that they appear only at 500-year intervals. They say that it is the death of a phoenix's father which prompts its visit to Egypt. Anyway, if the painting was reliable, I can tell you something about the phoenix's size and qualities, namely that its feathers are partly gold but mostly red, and that in appearance and size it is most like an eagle. There is a particular feat they say the phoenix performs; I do not believe it myself, but they say that the bird sets out from its homeland in Arabia on a journey to the sanctuary of the sun, bringing its father sealed in myrrh, and buries its father there.

And it's in many of my favorite fantasy books. ^_^

The quote from Herodotus really has nothing to do with my painting, aside from the fact that it is talking about phoenixes and gives me a chance to complain about Herodotus' writing style (which stinks!).

But all the rest of the background information is supposed to tell you about the drawing. I'm going to go all super-artist-y on you and describe why I drew what I drew.

The pheonix is shown in it's typical pose: wings splayed, ready to fly away from the fire of it's ashes. I followed the typical mode of coloring and made its feathers blue, purple, and green. The Celtic Knotwork is there because I love Celtic Knotwork... but also because the illuminated manuscripts peaked my interest in the symbolic meaning of the pheonix. The watercolors and pen ares supposed to imitate the stained glass look (since I'm quite sure that the phoenix can be found in many old church windows). It's hard to see, but there is a slight sun-like design in the background-- the phoenix reportedly lived in Heliopolis in Egypt (the "city of the sun") All the swirly spirals and fun designs on the feathers? That's just because I love drawing swirly spirals and fun designs. :)

  

Oh, yeah, in case you can't tell... I spent a long time on this. I stayed up until midnight to work on it, lol! Future drawings for this challenge will not be as fancy as this!

By the way... I've always felt a little sorry for the Phoenix. Imagine, living for 500 years all on your own, any friends you might make dying in what would appear the blink of an eye. I often get this sad, melancholy feeling when I think about the old mythological creatures and heros. Do you?

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My amost-8-year-old sister is joining in the challenge!

Day 1: Draw Yourself

Day 2: Draw your favorite animal

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Some more random updates:

• I'm working on Ink and Fairydust today. The November/December issue should be released within a week!
• Happy Hallowe'en! Happy All Hallow's Day (aka All Saints' Day)! And Happy All Souls Day!  
• I'm working hard on some new jewelry for the Shoppe. Remember, Christmas is coming up... if you would like to order some jewelry, do so soon! :)

 

.....

All images belong to Shaylynn

Easy Celtic Knotwork

I know, you're thinking, "Does such a thing exist?"

Today is St. Patrick's Day! Time to wear some green, get pinched if you don't, and watch some parades. 

Oh, yeah, and it's also a day to celebrate and remember the holy life of this missionary saint. Have you read his beautiful prayer yet? 

I saw this video a few days ago (in a roundabout way it is thanks to a blog commenter). Some very fancy mathematical thingamabob called graph theory makes simple Celtic knotwork extremely easy. I just had to share! And what better day than the Feast of St. Patrick? :)

Those of you who have said, "Wow, Celtic knotwork looks cool, but way to hard for me" (which would be everyone who said anything)-- you now have no excuse. :)

You, like me, are about to be captivated by the beautiful art of drawing Celtic knotwork... without the tangles of headaches.

This video is by Vi Hart, a "recreational mathemusician." You might have to watch the video a few times, because shetalksasfastasIdowhenIgetexcited (translates to: she talks as fast as I do when I get excited.)

Basically, all you have to do is draw a random squiggle-- but make sure each loop is obvious and that the ends are either connected or very obviously seperate.

Next, use that squiggle as a guideline to make the "over-under" pattern.

One very neat thing-- when using this method, any direction that you go and any amount of branchings that you take always make a perfect "over-under" pattern, assuming you are starting off of one point.

I'm sure that there is a mathematical reason for that, but I just think it's neat.

Now, finish drawing your knot and "decorate it."

TaDa! Super easy, what did I tell you?

You can use Sharpies, markers, pencils...

And if you have a very thick marker, it's even easier to draw the knot. Just make your squiggle-rope with one swish of the marker, and then trace the over-under pattern.

Now, there are some obvious limitations to this technique. The main problem is that freehand drawings of such geometric patterns always turn out somehwhat lopsided. As long as it takes, grids and compasses are useful.

Also, using a scribble like this makes it neigh impossible to draw more complicated knots. You can only use one strand (or a couple if you are talented), and if you want a structured look with no spaghetti, you have to be able to visualize it beforehand. For complicated patterns or spaces, the grid method is better-- as much as I detest grids!

If you are really getting into knotwork, please check out the post where I share my favorite (beginner) tutorials.

But why am I going on about the limitations? The "scribble method" is so easy! I highly doubt you Fairy People are as insane as I am. You probably don't care much about complicated knotwork. You probably aren't writing your next English paper on the history of Celtic knotwork.

Don't ask. The left page is true spagetti knotwork, and the right is what I do when I am bored...

___________

I love Vi Hart's videos. I wish all math could be taught this way. I would learn so much more! This reminds me of non-Eucledian geometry... I liked it because M.C. Escher did a really neat drawing with it that got me interested.

Seriously... I don't like numbers-- I prefer shapes and finding the little patterns in things (but only after I know the big picture-- I'm all right brained like that, and the rest of my family doesn't understand me). This is why I loved geometry (except for the proofs) and detest Alegbra II with vehemence.

Here are a few more of her Math Doodle videos:

This is seriously cool. I love these ideas... math can be neat. (I did not just say that.)

Hehe. Check out this video that's a bit of a spinoff of Vi Hart's. Very funny for the camel/needle joke. Bit more math than I can follow at bullet speed, though.

Does this remind anyone of M.C. Escher? Here he combined tessellations and the hyperbolic plane.

image source

Random fact: Did you know that the hyperbolic plane can be make out of crochet? It's the only medium that works...

Wow-- art, math, and Greek mythology? This girl isn't a mathemusican but a mathemagician. (Yes, I think I'm punny).

This is as of two weeks ago: "Let's say you're in math class. You're supposed to be learning about exponential functions, but you're having trouble caring about exponential functions."

I still don't care about exponential functions-- at least when logarithms and other bizzare things are concerned-- but do you know what? This visual description of exponential growth is both fun and makes much more sense than a graph with an asymptote.

Now go check out Vi Hart's website. She does many random artsy-mathsy things.

Since I'm on the topic of artsy-things, I thought I'd share this link with you. A very nice set of articles. A friend of mine (curse you, Perry the Platypus! *cough* I mean "Sir Humnus") made me spend an entire week pondering dimensions and tesseracts and whatnot. Seriously, he gave me one link and managed to take over my mind. I had a strange dream concerning a box that is a nail suddenly appearing in the middle of my room... Oh, and read the book Flatland. I got it free on my iPod. It's like... extreme awesomeness.

I wish math classes could be taught like this!!!

...okay. This post went on a LONG tangent. :)

(edit: I did a video about drawing celtic knots here!)

Car Part Anvil and Celtic Knotwork

*best hillbilly voice* Ma daddy's reaaaal awesome. 'E got mea anvil!

That's right-- I now have an anvil for hammering wire jewelry. You'll never guess what the anvil actually is!

Honestly, I'm not even sure what this thing is. All I know is that it is a car part. Dad used to work in the automotive industry, and this is a casting of a thingamabobbers he worked on.


This random car part works wonderfully as that anvil I had on my wish list. I scrubbed it clean (even though it doesn't look it!) and have driven my family crazy with the bang, bang, bang of the hammer.

My brother is now officially jealous of me. His dream is to become a blacksmith someday, and he's been asking for a real anvil for ages. This is the first time he's actually bothered to help me make some jewelry!

I've been having too much fun with this whole idea of hammering wire. Below you can see all of the trinkets I have made so far:

I'm really impressed with how well this works! The hammering really strengthens the aluminum wire and is so pretty and sturdy!

And... I can do CELTIC KNOTWORK in jewelry!!!

I've listed some beautiful new hammered-wire jewelry on my artfire Shoppe! And on quite the sale, I tell you. :)

Since this is a new technique, I've got all the new designs on a first-batch sale for under five dollars-- some as low as one or two bucks! Seriously, that's like the price of the chain the designs come on. I would love it if some of you Faerie People could try out some of these designs and tell me what you think!


I've already made myself a pretty knotwork bracelet, which I shall wear on St. Patrick's day.




Now all I need is a wire jig... I'm having fun free-forming all of this, but whenever I try a repeating pattern (such as my bracelet, which you can see in the middle of the picture), I can't get it even.

That and sterling silver. Because if I were using silver wire, not aluminum, I'd be able to tell these same designs for $30! Seriously-- I was browsing Etsy and Artfire for inspiration. Apparently no one makes these desings in aluminum... but they do plenty in silver. You can have the same designs for 1/6 the cost. Although, I wish I could afford to work in sterling silver wire. (I'll do it if I have a custom order! Hint, hint!)


By the way, I was inspired to ask about an anvil after looking at my friend Leia's post on her hammered wire earrings. I fell in love with those... You can see that I used the same design on a necklace-- except I hammered much more.

St. Patrick's Prayer: Celtic Knotwork

Guess what I spent an entire weekend on? Art!

This is my latest project (man, I haven't been doing very many "big" art projects lately... must work on that).

It is "St. Patrick's Breastplate" prayer, calligraphied with a handdrawn celtic knotwork border.

Read on to see the in-between steps-- I went camera crazy!!!

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

 (click to enlarge)

I began by drawing the knotwork on a piece of Bristol Board.

Let's just say this took forever and a day.

First I had to draw a grid. You've no idea how long it takes to draw a million little dots, all spaced perfectly and just the right number! NO IDEA!

Then I criss-crossed the grid. (Picture #1) I "split" the knot in the middle, to add some contrast.

Next, I traced the cross-hatch pattern with over-under-over-unders. (Picture #2) This is when I began to freak out. "Real" knotwork uses only one strand of rope. As you can see in the second picture, I somehow managed to make 3 strands? I'm not sure how I managed that. I'm sure it has something to do with math... the number of dots I used or something. Anyways, I finally convinced myself that no one would notice. :)

Next came the fun part-- watching the knotwork actually "take shape." a.k.a. Tracing over everything I just did, only in pen this time. (Picture #3)

I wanted to make sure that the calligraphy would actually fit before I wrote on the nice paper. And boy, am I glad I did so!

Long story short, all of my calligraphy pens were too big or out of ink. I stopped by Micheals and spent $10 on a new pen set... Only to discover that the "fine tip" was too thick to fit the prayer on the page!

I found a smaller pen in Mom's scrapbook stuff. It wasn't ideal because the ink smudged, but hey! It fit!

So now I have three pages in my sketchbook with this prayer calligraphied and then X'ed out because they were too big and I was mad at it!

^ Here I laid a calligraphied sheet of paper on top of my artwork, to make sure it fit.

The next step was to trace guidelines and center the lines.

...and then to calligraphy it!

So I got all mad at myself again. On the left you see the artwork as I actually calligraphied it. Some of the ink smeared, the lines were not centered, and it doesn't fill the whole page!!!

On the right I just messed with the image on Photoshop so I could show you what the artwork is supposed to look like.

Next plan of attack... COLOR IT IN!

Another forever and a day project.

Quite nice to listen to the Celtic Thunder station on Pandora, though. :) 

This picture shows the "three strand" problem I was talking about earlier. Everything in green is one single strand.

AND THEN I TOOK PICTURES FROM FUNNY ANGLES! 

Because I am, really and truly, crazy.

We had a beautiful, unused frame that was intended as a Christmas present for someone who got something else instead. Since it wasn't in use... why not?

The artwork was not big enough to fill the mat, so I taped it to a background.

Can you guess what it is?

It's one of those file folders!!! Hey, it was the right shade of green, and bigger than scrapbook paper!

All nice and pretty on our otherwise bare mantle!

"...and having on the breastplate of righteousness;” -Ephesians 6:14

I always think of that verse from Ephesians when I think of this prayer.

Also known as the "Deer's Cry" or the "Lorcia," the "Breastplate Prayer" is attributed to St. Patrick. 

I love it's simplicity. It is a prayer asking that God be with you in everything, and that you may recognize Him in everything. A prayer that God be your protection, your breastplate-- and that you be His soldier.

There are several translations. What I calligraphied is just a small section of the "I arise today" version-- read it here. I have to say I'd never heard the full prayer before!

{ Here } is another version, a literal translation that's a bit amusing in word choice! Lots of cultural context there!

Another translation/version/whatever has this beautiful verse:

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of
every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of
every one who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye of
every one who sees me,
Christ in every ear
that hears me.

Here is the prayer set to song:

...and another version of the song, which I'd never heard before.

So there you go! I'll get my Irish going real quick (well, I don't have any Irish, except for a relative a few generations back, but Wikipedia has the original Irish!)

Críst limm, Críst reum, Críst im degaid
Críst indium, Críst íssum, Críst úassum
Críst dessum, Críst túathum
Críst i llius, Críst i ssius, Críst i n-érus
Críst i cridiu cach duini rodomscrútadar
Críst i ngiun cach oín rodomlabrathar
Críst i cach rusc nomdercadar
Críst i cach clúais rodomchloathar.

The Evolution of a Knot

a.k.a. I Took Pictures While Working on a Knotwork Drawing

I did not use a tutorial for this-- I was modifying what I knew about circular knotwork from the Trinity Knot. My compass got alot of use. I think I drew 26 little circles. 

Here it is, all traced in pen.

Colouring it in! 

(buahaha, had to use the British spelling. My brother Nick was just talking to me... we've never been out of the country, but somehow he's had a British accent from the day he started to talk.)

....and the finished artwork!

I made this on a small piece of Bristol board the size of a trading card. I turned it into a prayer card by calligraphy-ing a prayer on the back. No pictures of that because it really didn't turn out. :P

Celtic Knotwork Tutorials

I'm afraid I scared people with my last post. Normally I get at least 2 or 3 comments the day that I publish a post. I have none on the Celtic Knotwork post. I know I'm waaaaaay over-analyzing. But come, and I shall show you that Celtic Knotwork isn't so hard, after all...

Now's when I crack out my Alaadin voice and start singing, "I can show you the world/ shining, shimmering, splendid..." (Oh, wait, I can't sing. Right.)

Now, keep in mind that I have only done the most basic knotwork techniques, so I only searched for basic tutorials...

I would like to introduce you to the website that made Celtic Knotwork "click" for me. (My brain clicks. No clicking = no understanding. But once something has clicked, I won't forget it for a long, long time.)

Aon Celtic Art

Here is her tutorial page. The grids with the big and little dots are what made it click for me. You can print the grids for free, here. I recommend reading (and trying!) the basic knot and how to modify the basic knot.

This website has helpful links for various methods.

The Fantasy Art Resource Project has some helpful insights for those who, like me, know only the very basics.

I found a random blog that made the whole idea of "walls" click. That Jolie Girl has a tutorial here, and some very helpful notes here. And, wow, I just found this, which is very helpful, also.

This free PDF tutorial by Reed Mihaloew may be technical and in-depth, but just from a cursory glance it looks like one of the best I've seen so far. I plan to use this tutorial to teach myself some more complex knots.

You know, if I had the experience, I would totally make some tutorials of my own. I honestly don't think there is much out there that is very helpful.

(Although I imagine that books dedicated to the subject are very illuminating-- haha, I made a joke-- but our library doesn't have any.)