Insignia #1

It feels so good to be creating a new blog post about a new project on this, the first day of a brand new year … and I’d like to start by sending warmest New Year greetings to all my loyal followers!

2017 was a hectic year for me (in a thoroughly good way!) and there were times when I thought I’d never get back to creating larger pieces of quilled artwork again – but the dust has settled, sanity has returned and I am itching to move forward with a new collection of framed pieces that have been assembling themselves in my head for some weeks now.

My new collection will be called ‘Insignia’, and the idea is loosely based around the shapes and symbols I have observed in heraldry and armorial shields. I love the idea of shield shapes being divided up into geometric compartments where quilled motifs and icons can be displayed, especially when executed with gold, silver and other metallic-edged quilling strips which are so readily available today.

I have just finished working on the first piece in the series, which will serve as a prototype for what is to come:

I had originally thought that I would embellish this piece with some ‘specimen’ quilled motifs such as a complex alternate side-looped husking or ring of pixie-hood loops, making the shields a bit like a sampler – but then I stumbled across another idea which seemed particularly suitable to be working on at Christmas. If you follow my blog, you will know that I am very proud of my artistic association with the magnificent parish church of St Mary Magdalene in Taunton, Somerset, and was fascinated by the beautiful range of iconic symbols which have recently been used to decorate the church’s Christmas tree. These are called ‘Chrismons’, which are Christmas decorations which incorporate traditional Christian symbols – you can read more about them via this link here.

Chrismons are traditionally made in gold and white, and I could see that they would fit perfectly into the first ‘Insignia’ design that I was creating. I picked three of them – the triquetra:

the heart:

 

and the herald angel:

all of which I quilled using white and gold.

The triquetra (or trinity knot) was made using three simple ring coils in gold. I pinched the first coil into an ‘eye’ shape for the centre of the knot. Then I did the same with the second coil, but cut it in half to form the two side loops of the shape. Then I cut a small section from the third ring to complete the ‘knot’ shape inside. Having glued these sections together, I wrapped the whole triquetra shape around the outside in white.

For the herald angel, I reduced an image of the shape to the appropriate size, placed the outline under cling film on my work board and wrapped a parallel stack of two gold and two white strips around the shape using pins. To hold the shape, it was necessary to rub glue between the strips on the reverse side whilst the pins remained in place, and manipulate the angel just a little after it was removed from the board. I was relieved to find that it fitted perfectly into the square I had reserved for it in my upper shield!

Wintry light (or lack of it!) has made it difficult to photograph the finished piece with accurate representation of the colours.  The background is dark navy blue, which complements the other colours of gold, red and light blue (plus white in the Chrismons) very nicely.

The outline for the shields was created using my trusty ‘sandwich strip’ technique which I described in an earlier blog post here.

Now I am keen to move forward with another ‘Insignia’ piece, for which I plan to use ‘sunnier’ colours in the background. Maybe I will use some more of the Chrismon shapes, or perhaps some other icons – all will be revealed in due course. Hopefully I will have a complete series of these pictures ready for exhibition at the Taunton Live Arts Festival in July, and will endeavour to blog about them individually as I go. It’s so good to be back in production once again!!