Studio blog: Loose Celtic knotwork play

If you have seen my traditional Celtic knotwork then you will know that it is created using geometry and grids, and drawn in pencil, and is quite precise in nature. Recently I have been craving a bit more looseness and so I decided to use one of my many hand made sketchbooks to play around with paint and some loose knotwork.

I’m really enjoying the process and here are the first two pages. Each page starts off with a collaged background, which is generally made out of scraps of my hand printed gelli-papers, that are left over from workshops. Once the collage is dry, I cover it with clear gesso and then wait for everything to dry again. When the page is ready to work on, I draw the motifs in pencil first, and then set to adding background colours and adding colours to the motifs. I use Derwent Inktense and Graphitint pencils, Derwent Inktense watercolours, Daler Rowney System 3 fluid acrylics and System 3 acrylic inks.

Whether or not this will eventually transfer into my artwork, we’ll see, but for now I’m just enjoying the experimentation. I have some ideas for the next page, which is a double page spread – let’s see how it turns out.