I recently looked through some old sketchbooks. These drawings are from one from the 1990s.

I have been interested in Celtic Art for a long time. I wrote my thesis on pre Christian Celtic art and I think these were drawn a while after that. I know they were drawn in  the early 1990s as I found a drawing of one of my old cats in the book.

Drawing knotwork is not easy, the trouble is getting the pattern right. Weaving the lines is quite difficult and I think here I was practicing the positions of each line. There are other circular patterns where two or three parts interlink. If I remember rightly these can be used on brooches and sheild bosses.

I still try and do this kind of pattern occasionally, for example a painting of a snake recently which had this kind of feel. I  also like the animals that are used as terminals to the knots.

Recently a hoard of jewellery, armoury and gold peices were found in Staffordshire. This was a Saxon Hoard but you can still see the influence of knotwork in the peices. I want to create something like the figure of a woman (see top of page ) as a painting.

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