Size: 11 by 14 inches
References: How to Draw a Triskele
Surface: Black Stonehenge paper, cold pressed
Colors: Holbein Zinc and Permanent White, W&N Lamp Black, Ultramarine blue, Vibrant Green, Cadmium Red, Lake Orange, previously mixed colors
Other Tools: Compass, 0.5 micron pen, ground cuttlefish
The Sable swap is an annual gift exchange among the artisans of Ansteorra. I've been participating on an off since I started in the SCA and I always enjoy making and receiving the gifts. A questionnaire is sent to all participant to let know their preferences and the answers are sent to the respective artisans
This year I got to make gift for a member of the Barony of Namron. In their questionnaire they mentioned that the triskele was a favorite symbol of them, and they were also part of the LGBTQ+ community.
I decided to make them a painting of a triskele that included the pride rainbow and the colors of their Barony (black and yellow). My first idea was to make it in the style of the drafts of Leonardo Da Vinci, but I noticed that it would be difficult to integrate colors in that style so I changed plans and decided to go for a stained glass window, much like the ones we see in cathedrals.
The triskele is a celtic symbol found in many engravings. It consists of 3 spirals joined at their points. It looks simple, and is easy to draw freehanded to a certain amount of precision.
However I've never felt comfortable doing freehand work (my engineer brain screams at imprecise lines), and I also wanted to give the idea of an architectural element, so I decided to go in a deep dive an learn how to draw a precise triskele with only a compass.
I spent some time looking in internet for a good guide on how do achieve this, and I finally settled on one I liked (linked in the technical section as a reference). It took me a couple of tries to get the correct size of the general picture and the lines I wanted, but I got a sketch that I was happy with, and I inked it with a micron pen. Then I started filling the empty spaces with small shapes for the pieces of glass that would make the windows.
Halfway through I noticed that I would need an overall frame for the image, and I panicked for a moment because I had calculated the triskele to jut just right in the space I had, but luckily the math of the triskele made a couple of millimeters smaller so I could fit an outer circle as the frame of the window.
Making all those tiny shapes was tedious, and I was happy when I had finally inked the last of them.
Now normally this would be the point where I would transfer the design into the pergamenta or parchment to start the final version. However I was not feeling sure about how to place the colors I wanted to use. I wanted a pride rainbow in one spiral, the colors of their barony in another one and in the moment I decided to go with the colors of the bisexual flag for the last one. I wanted both the pride and bisexual spirals to show the colors more or less in the same proportions of their flags, and I was concerned that correcting mistakes in this scroll would ruin the clean lines I wanted, so I decided to go with a full colored sketch of the image I wanted.
I started by drawing faint lines defining what areas would go which color and after that got to color the glass pieces using brush markers for two reasons. One because they would require more time and second because I wanted to give dimension to the triskele using a central ridge that I was not sure yet how to shade.
When it came to color the stone, I started by using gray as a base color and before I started working with the shadows, I decided to ask some people that know more than me in the subject where should I place the shadows. I had a general idea when but when I tried to hatch them with a mechanical pencil it just did not look right. I drew arrows showing the direction of the light and using their example as a guide, I colored the shadows of the stone, first lightly with a mechanical pencil and then with the same brush markers.
Happy with the results, now I faced the question on how to transfer this design into their final piece. This was by far the most detailed piece I've done so far and the watercolor paper the sketch was done on did not allow my light table to shine through enough.
I decided to go with a period way for transferring the design: Prick and pounce. Taking a sharp needle I pricked al the lines of the triskele, the outer circle and all the corners for the glass pieces.
To transfer the image, the idea is to pounce over the pricked design with a small fabric pouch filled with coal powder or any other dark powder. The powder would fall through the holes and settle on the paper underneath, showing the transferred image. I did not have coal powder, but I did have ground cuttlefish. This is the central cartilage of cuttlefish that is dried and finely ground into a white powder and it is used to prepare parchment before doing calligraphy.
Of course using white powder to pounce on white paper would not work, so I changed to my black paper. Taking a scrap of fine linen I put some of the cuttlefish powder in the center and tied the fabric forming a small pouch. I set the design on top of the black paper and lightly tapped it with the pouch, doing my best to not move the design.
After lifting the design, I was left with a pretty good dotted version of the image, at least for the triskele and the outer circle. I was a bit disappointed that the inner shapes had not transferred as well as the rest, but I could improvise with that.
As with any scroll on black paper, the first step of me is priming with permanent white, so the black background does not dull the colors. However, in this cases it primed only the glass pieces because I actually wanted the areas that would be stone to look duller in contrast with the vibrant colors of the stained glass.
After the white was completely dry, I painted all the flats of the glass pieces using colors I already had and had mixed before I started to document my ratios, so I only have the formula for the ochre on the left side, from my knotwork scroll. All the rest are colors from my previous black scoroll.
I decided to start by the small pieces because that way, any errors that I made I could correct them when I painted the "mortar" and the "stone" parts with different shades of grey.
My plan after this was to paint all the details and effects to give the glass the glow effect that a real stained glass window would have when light shone through it, however when researching the process, I decided that the scale of the details was too much for my still growing skills in painting and decided to abort that plan. Leaving the flat colors only gave the idea of a mosaic so I was still very happy with it and I will take more time to learn how to paint a stained gladd window before attempting this again.
Next was the flat colors of the "mortar" and the "stone". For the mortar I mixed a very light grey from zinc white and lamp black and used one of my miniature brushes to paint it, trying to make all the edges neat and the corners as sharp as possible.
For the stone, I mixed a slightly darked grey and I also added a hint of vibrant green and ultramarine blue, to give it that blue-ish tinge that some stone buildings have.
The last step was to paint the shades and volume of the "stone" to give the final appearance of a carving. Using the cartoon I had as reference, I did this on two steps:
First I painted all the center of each shadow with a slightly darker grey, also with blue and green added. These were the darked parts, and the shadows would fade to the sides as they came around the ridged spirals.
Next, I mixed a medium tone directly from the darker grey and painted the borders of the shadows on each side of the darker areas. I could have omitted this step, but this made the blending of the colors easier for me.
After that was done, but before the medium grey was dry, I took a clean wet paintbrush and started blending all the borders between colors to smooth them as much as I could. I had different grades of luck with this and some parts (like the bottom of the center of the triskele) showed some spotting because the paint diluted too much.
As a last detail, I went back to the darker gray and with my finest brush I traced the center of the ridge in the triskele to give it a sharp point that was not noticeable before in the areas that were not shaded.