Details.....

 

And More Details....

Sometimes, Dear Readers, I am struck by what a Magnificent Structure this Castle is becoming! And in those infrequent moments, my resolve to just Keep on Keeping on is fortified and the missing inspiration is awakened anew! What has taken me so long...? This is the ever present nagging voice in my life... but I know these things take Time, and lots of it, for those pesky details to emerge from the confusing mists of "what if I tried this...?" and "maybe this would be best..." or "What was I thinking..." or "How could I have forgotten that..."?. Clarity is sometimes a rare treat. And thus I will tell you that the Grand Lower Windows of the Castle Great Hall have always been as clear as a bell in my mind! The story is that they were "added" to the original Ancient fortress along with the fireplaces sometime long after the original structure was built. They are large and have opening glass sections at the bottoms. But true to typical castle construction, they are "plainer" then the higher up windows. The arch at the top is just plain without the saw toothed decoration and the central pillar is plain with out the barley twist carving. The only extra decorative element is the capitals on those pillars. And of course, they ware not so easy to make!

 

But first, we have to build the arches. 

Again I am using that scrap of luan plywood. 

It has a smoother grain and denser filler than

 modern plywoods of similar thickness.

 Then they need the required painting...

 

Primer, the base coat of gray and the "stone" texturing.

 

 And here they are propped in position, awaiting the glue. 

But we are still missing one important detail!

 

Did you notice there is no "Capital" on that central pillar?

 

Like this! 

(The one on the left)

Can you see the difference it makes?

 

I neglected to take pictures of the making of the capital. 

By itself the stock wood was not thick enough at the base, 

so I needed to pad it to make it thicker. 

And it needed to taper in from top to bottom.

I know it is impossible to tell from this picture!

 

 Here you can see both with the capitals. 

It makes the windows grand, elegant, but not fussy. 

 

It always amazes me how much difference

 the glazed windows make in a building!

And eventually the entire facade will

 have the "rocks" painted too. 

 

 But that is not all I worked at this week, Dear Readers. 

The Medieval Lord Tapestry had it's share 

of pesky details to sort out as well!

I left you last week with the Horse just getting his legs....

 

I was trying to get the main outlines of 

the horse's body stitched, so I could be sure

 of his placement and angle of stance. 

This was so that I could design the saddle. 

My original sketch was inadequate in several ways.

 It omitted the stirrup, and didn't allow for the

 "roundness" of the horse's girth around the belly. 

There was really not quite enough space 

for everything to look right and be distinct 

when stitched at this thread count. 

 

And there was the question of what colors

 the saddle should be.... most leather saddles

 are brown of one shade or another. 

And while the tapestries proved that saddles 

also came in brilliant shades of red or reddish-brown, 

that was way too similar to the horse's color.

 

While pondering these issues I decided

 to get the horse as finished as possible, 

the better to judge colors and positions.

 

I had chosen a dark maroon red for the horse's reins... 

the ones that steer the horse, not the decorative

 flashy ones of the "caparison" ...

 they are the ones the Lord is holding.

 I decided to make the stirrup leathers the same color

 and stitched the metal stirrup and the leather first,

 since they will be "in front of" the rest of the saddle. 

Fitting the saddle girth behind them was really tricky.

 But this also needed to be done before

stitching the rest of the saddle. 

I made a start on the saddle, in back next to the horse's head,

 but the color was too similar to the rest of the brown horse. 

I ended up unstitching that bit and starting again 

with the grays I used for the hooves.

This shows the saddle "removed" (ie unstitched)....

 

 

And the re-drawn chart... 

also the "extra bit" of the horse's hind end

 that would not fit on the Tapestry...

 

 

Here the new saddle color is started... 

way up there at the horse's withers (beside his head)... 

but it was getting late and dark... 

I needed to be stitching in the daylight to judge the colors.

 

 

Here I have decided that I need the clarity 

of the Tapestry edges to work within 

so I ran a line of sewing thread around the stitching area.

 

 

I have begun the saddle stitching... 

I decided the gray colors worked well enough... 

but I am not happy with the shape of the saddle. 

 

 

 Having unstitched and re-stitched the saddle a couple of times... 

I realized I was not going to be able to make it look "right",

 but this was probably good enough.

 The saddle is not supposed to be the focal point at all.

 It needs to just be there in the background, 

recognizable as a saddle whether or not it is accurate in details!

 Once the background is finished, the Lord 

and the Horse himself should be the focus.

 

 So I concentrated on finishing the horse himself.... 

including the complicated decision of whether or not

 to include his left back hoof.... 

the one that sticks back into the tapestry fragment at the bottom right..

 I decided he would be happier with the hoof than without! 

It gives him balance.

 

Well, Dear Readers, I don't know about you, 

but for Me, all those little details

 make such a difference.

 Details matter a lot!