I began by making a list of different topics to work on. I decided on doing something that specifically was adjacent to my local culture, yet was something I was unaware of in any detail. That topic was North Welsh saints. I picked up a few books about early medieval art and I read about countless north welsh saints, about 30 or so, and I then shortlisted them to my favorite 4.
I experimented and thought early on about playing with different methods if applying lines., in that I mean I looked at an artist that drew in quite an interesting way that made it feel like the lines moved, and I also looked at glass stained windows and the way the lines connect in those, since those could also be applicable to my work, in the end i decided for two reasons it was best to not bother, on the first topic, i don’t think the viewer would be able to notice the effects sufficiently to justify how much slower that method of drawing was. Also, while it could look ethereal, something about it screamed “1960s drug culture movements” about it. So I decided while it was interesting, it seemed like a dead end.
The stained glass window design would’ve required two layers of the drawing for me to do peropey, which would’ve in practice meant about twice as much work, or just under that amount if i could work efficiently. On top of that i didn’t think it was necessary since as the project went on, i decided against on incorporating some influences not just from stained glass windows but from old maps, manuscripts and religious paintings, i also toyed with the idea of adopting certain pictorial references from mosaics, but i thought that may make the image look too Byzantine in nature.
I did quite a few pages of thumbnails, I was told that the rough look of the thumbnails did convey a very medieval feeling, far more than the more rendered ideas I had. Which i thought was very true, i hadn’t just taken the realistic renderings from nowhere though, these were of course from the stained glass art. But yes. More cartoonish images would’ve been more authentic to the period if I was just doing a manuscript. This and also the idea i needed some more common elements to tie these images together as a set, and so came the idea of the welsh dragon as a cartoonish companion to the saints in all their depictions.
I experimented and thought early on about playing with different methods if applying lines., in that I mean I looked at an artist that drew in quite an interesting way that made it feel like the lines moved, and I also looked at glass stained windows and the way the lines connect in those, since those could also be applicable to my work, in the end i decided for two reasons it was best to not bother, on the first topic, i don’t think the viewer would be able to notice the effects sufficiently to justify how much slower that method of drawing was. Also, while it could look ethereal, something about it screamed “1960s drug culture movements” about it. So I decided while it was interesting, it seemed like a dead end.
The stained glass window design would’ve required two layers of the drawing for me to do peropey, which would’ve in practice meant about twice as much work, or just under that amount if i could work efficiently. On top of that i didn’t think it was necessary since as the project went on, i decided against on incorporating some influences not just from stained glass windows but from old maps, manuscripts and religious paintings, i also toyed with the idea of adopting certain pictorial references from mosaics, but i thought that may make the image look too Byzantine in nature.
I did quite a few pages of thumbnails, I was told that the rough look of the thumbnails did convey a very medieval feeling, far more than the more rendered ideas I had. Which i thought was very true, i hadn’t just taken the realistic renderings from nowhere though, these were of course from the stained glass art. But yes. More cartoonish images would’ve been more authentic to the period if I was just doing a manuscript. This and also the idea i needed some more common elements to tie these images together as a set, and so came the idea of the welsh dragon as a cartoonish companion to the saints in all their depictions.
references, and research into the first Stamp
References and research into the second stamp
REFERENCES AND RESEARCH INTO THE Third STAMP
REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH INTO THE fourth STAMP
