Painting and Stitching Celtic Designs

So after using the mapped out drawing techniques from books on paper, I decided to attempt it on fabric this time stitching on the markings by hand. 

Wool mark making

 The fabric was quite thick and the wool kept snapping so I gave up on my first design. And more on to another stitching method.

Spiral knot boarder

 This was really quite fun to do, and although a little while I really liked the end result. Just imaging the hem of a dress finished with this, or sewn around the neckline as an embellishment.

Indisparne Spiral Knot Panel
Golden woven thread sewn into cotton polyester.
by Abigail Lane
Textile Designer at NUA

 This is only 9x9 centimetres. But it took me a very long while to do. Because I couldn't get the thread to pass through the fabric I sewed it on by hand with thinner thread.

Indisparne Knot Panel 2
By Abigail Lane
Dyed Wool on polyester cotton.

 Same design, but on a larger scale. You can still see the pen markings beside the sewn shapes, but the would easily come out. I think this design would look great repeated on a larger scale.

Book cover.
by Abigail Lane
Jimmie Gel silver rollerball pen and
Bronze Acrylic paint from WHSmith
on Leather bound Book.

I Decided to create a new design on my book and practice drawing on different surfaces. The Bronze Paint looks the best even though you can't tell in this image. The Silver marks can be rubbed off, whereas the Bronze Acrylic paint stays on.

I will most certainly be doing a lot more painting. I think it looks good.

Aidan Meehan's Knotwork for Celtic Design.

After making a few drawings of Celtic patterns, and finding it a little bit difficult. I decided to search for new ways of mapping out a drawing board, and the detailed, structured work of Aidan Meehan was the answer.

Stone carvings. showing a Lindisparne Spiral Knot panel.

Hand-made Cushion inspired by the
techniques of Alison Willoughby.

I simply love the concept of creating work through a multitude of layers, and this took me days to to. But that was primarily because the thread kept snapping, from trying to sew through to many layers at once.

Torc End,
Pencil 4B
Abigail Lane

Golden Torc.
Drawn in Chalk Pastel,
by Abigail Lane

I really liked this drawing, but I wanted something that I could create that could go straight onto a textured surface.

Aidan Meehan's Celtic Design book.
Found in NUA Library.

I thought it would be easy when I started so I gave myself quite a hard pattern to start off with, least ways to say. I didn't finish it because it was inaccurate. So I started back at the beginning.

Maping out the Primary, secondary, Tertiary Grids.

Starting the Basics.

And so I started from Chapter 1 and began to relearn in a very mathematical way how to draw Celtic Knots.

The 4x2 plait construction.

And so my next step was in creating a long plait of Solomon Knots. It took a little while to get used to the step by step method, but it was worth it. 

The Construction of the Josephine Knot.

I found this was really pleasant to draw, and you can see the different possibilities that become evident by just considering where you add your colour, the thickness of lines, considering the background colour as well as the foreground. This picture's knots were 7 inches apart from end to end. It was 2 inches high, and the repeat took up 3 spaces each, and as you can see I drew in 2 units per box. 

Ten Square Panel

After the success of the other drawings, I moved on to a 10x10 inches boxed format. Still using the Josephine Knot pattern, and just layering them on top of one another.

You can see my own hand writing below on this one. When you fill in the spaces and add in the extra lines on the sides, that is called ribbing.

Ribbed Colour Josephine Knot.
10 inches squared. 

You can really see the framework and pattern being shown here. It is very precise. 

 Josephine Knots
with Horizontal boarders
and Vertical boarder.

Now in the pervious design I used vertical boarders, 5 down the sides and 4 across. But in this one I added Horizontal boarders as well, and look at the deference it made to the drawing.

Chad's Cross.

This one I mapped out as 6 cm squared with an added 2 2x1cm in the centre. I'm not a mathematician  so do except me to become one to explain how this works so well. If you do need help to create this get out the book it is very good.

34 cm x 26 cm board.

 This was a made up design and as you can tell I'm in the process of drawing it out. I took a picture of it half done like this so you can see the process behind the back drawing.

Attempt to do Diagonal knot work.

I thought this would be easy, but as you can tell it wasn't. I think the curved edges look more like paper clips and broken straws rather than knots. I didn't look at the book's instructions for this one I did while outside constructing letters.

small example of real Celtic Art.

I was able to find this in the book called Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Painting, by Carl Nordenfalk. This was on page 72, and apparently from the Book of Lindisfarne. This is the carpet page at the beginning of the Gospels of Saint Mark. I just loved the combination of primary colours and swirling patterns. I can't wait to create work like this.