More Progress...

 

 It's All In The Details...

I know it has been a few weeks, Dear Readers, since I showed you the Carpet stitching. I have been working on it as often as possible because I am so eager to see how the design looks when the colors are in place. All I really have for a color guide is a blurry small picture of a completed carpet (this is a very old kit) and the printed on canvas, where you can see the colors are not accurate. So it is being a delicious voyage of discovery as each section and color of the design is added. In my haste, I have made a mistake or two... and only realized it when it was too late to unstitch the mistake. But they are small errors and can be counted as "authentic carpet variations" according to the experts on RL carpets!

I am loving every bit of the discovery!

But the main area of progress I want to show you

 is the painting of the Saints on the Castle Great Hall Ceiling.

I remembered to take a few "before' pictures this time!

Here you can see Saint Cecilia and Saint Mathew

 the way they have been for years as I dithered.

Saint Cecilia doesn't appear to need much... 

but I have never been happy with her appearance.

There are extremely few Medieval renditions 

of this Saint that I have been able to find. 

So I had to invent her.

 I am afraid I have failed to make her look Medieval enough.

(It is very difficult to paint in a more primitive style

 than the one you have been raised to know!)

It is mostly in her face...

 the expression is too modern... too personal... too something!

So I redid a lot of the expression.

 

I am not sure this is the final version... 

but I think she looks more intense.

Certainly she looks more serious.

Whether she is "medieval" enough I still haven't decided.

But I moved on to Mattieu.

He needed lots of details.... hands, feet, clouds above, footrest, robes...

Lots to fix!

The difficulty I have had with this one has always been

 that the original painting I am using as my reference

 is only a black and white photo in one of

 my older books on Medieval Art.

 

I know... my version doesn't hold a candle to him... he is so beautiful!

This is an illumination painted around 800 AD

 probably in the court of Charlemagne.

And the real challenge was to try and determine the original colors...

 or something that would "work" in a similar way.

The large areas that appear to be black are probably red 

(red photographs as black in a black and white picture)

but what were the other colors... 

the delicate contrasting colors of the rest of his finely folded clothing?

I could only guess.

 But we do know that the range of pigments

 available back then was very limited.

The colors most likely were pale greens pale blues, ocher (gold) and pale pinks.

Given the need to balance the colors overall on my ceiling,

 I chose green for his tunic and

 a combination of red and blue for the over robe.
 And the rendering of all that pleated folded draped material was a real challenge!

It is easier if you live with this style of clothes and you know how they fall and wrap...!

So forgive my naive attempts...

Alas, I did not take pictures of every step along the way.

For now... Mattieu has his robes completed....

And his feet hands and book...!

And I moved on to Lucia...

Here is the "before" of Lucia and Nicholas.

Lucia is another Saint with very few extant Medieval portrayals.

I thought the one in my "Hours of Catherine of Cleves" 

was a bit uninspired... and made no reference

 to her association with the Light (Candles or torch...)

So I again drew my own. 

I think I got a better "medieval" look this time,

 so she really only needed a tiny bit of ornamentation.

Her cloak, inside and out, needed details!

And her flame needed brightening...

Her seat needed details and her diadem needed color.

I am not certain about her gown....

 I may add a layer of something...

But for now I have moved on to Nicholas.

As you can see from the above picture

 before I added anything to him...

He needed his hands, hair, clothes, seat, gift, crozier, 

and especially his expression fixed!

Again, I did not take many pictures along the way.

My version is somewhat based on the one in 

The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, 

but only so far as his robes and crozier are concerned.

I needed to make his expression a little kinder...

Here I must point out the difficulty I have photographing this ceiling!

It is a curved surface... so the light reflects off the curves in a variable way.

And add in the ribbed folds of the corrugated cardboard.. 

and it becomes almost impossible to get a consistent light.

But perhaps you can see I have added his "gift" the golden coins,

 and added a layer of color to his miter and robe.

But mostly I have changed his expression so he is  smiling.

Here... come closer...

Just a little more shading and

 puckers at the corners of his mouth...

And he looks much kinder!

And that's as far as I got, Dear Readers,

But Progress is all in the Tiny details!