Stained Glass Window I was the first in a series of three which were designed as a conceptual work to illustrate the versatility of knotwork as a decorative form. The concept in this case was to create the form of a vaulted window surmounted with a rose window by repeated use and sub-division of a single pictish knot. As this was a set of three works I spent quite a lot of time during the design stage investigating ways to overcome the forseeable technical anomolies and difficulties this project presented, a strategy that proved to be of great value in the later stages of the work.

Stained Glass Window II is the same overall layout but using a different pictish knot as the basic unit within the matrix. I carried out the work on this set in three stages, after completing the layout and pencil work on I, II and III they were then inked and blocked then finally painted.

Stained Glass Window III, completes the set with the same treatment of a third pictish knot. Due to the complex nature of the layout I knew from the outset that the colour scheme had to be kept very simple, I felt that one colour with gold and black would provide contrast and still enhance the overall design. The complete series from initial design to the final brush stroke took over two hundred hours, time I regard as being very well spent as this project was of great educational value to me in my understanding of celtic knotwork.

It Is Hunger was probably my first serious surviving attempt at more complex structured knotwork.The medium of papyrus was great to work on but doesn't take well to too much erasing, in this instance I constructed the knotwork on a separate sheet of paper which was then traced and transferred onto the papyrus.
It is a beautiful quotation, but I have no idea who the author is or where it comes from. Any information regarding this would be gratefully received.

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Picti
James MacKenzie- Summers
Telephone: 44 (0) 1779 472367   E-mail: info@picti.co.uk

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