Wednesday 19 July 2006

My life is galloping past before I even have time to grab it by the tail!

Yes well. At the moment, I am finishing off a PG Cert in Heritage Management, with a dissertation on the use of site-specific myths at heritage sites. Fascinating subject, fascinating myths, and yesterday I visited Mythstories at the Morgan Library in Wem, Shropshire - to talk to the people who had largely pioneered this in Shropshire. It was a 2+ hours interview. I realised at some unearthly hour this morning that it actually takes longer to transcribe an interview than it does to record it in the first place. My fingers are accordingly 8mm shorter and my typing speed has now increased to 80 wpm (though this goes down to 30 wpm once you've taken off all the mistakes.)

And today I've been writing about medieval horses and their equipment ( harnesses, stirrups etc - FOOL!!!!) - and medieval society structure as background to a project for the MA in Archaeological Illustration which I will be starting in September. Considering I haven't actually started the course, there seems to be a lot of work ...

Anyway, here are some preliminary sketches for the finished illustration which is part of the project:





















My drawing's absolute c**p at the moment, probably because I spend more time typing than sketching - but don't you think my model's got a wonderfully medieval face?

8 comments:

Gretel said...

Ooh, yes, very serene and dignified! And your drawings not c..p at all, quite the opposite...

Chris.P said...

Archaeology is something I've always had an interest in but never pursued.

They are having a dig at an old iron age fort near me at Carn Brea and have unearthed loads of interesting relics, weaponary etc.

Your MA course sounds really interesting.

Lee said...

very nice sketch cas, I hear the lyre in the background and can smell the roasted meat ;)...your course sounds way cool...

Joanna said...

They are wonderful skecthes. Sounds an interesting subject. Its nice when you can get really involved. My last dessertation was 'the differance between the nature and the natural'. I completly confused most people, I knew what I ment! Good luck with the typing.

Cathy said...

Thanks everybody! I'm finding it very interesting at the moment doing research for a purely academic dissertation (where you can't say anything unless an 'authority' has already said it) and one for a practical art project where the historic research needs to be accurate (best from primary sources) but ... and this is the best bit ... you can make your OWN observations. I keep getting comments on my assignments from Birmingham University muttering about site visits lending the work a subjective air. Whereas to my thinking, reading about something in a book doesn't necessarily mean that it happens on the ground - so go and have a look. This, to me, seems a more 'scientific' approach. This is probably why I'm not an academic!

P xxx

TaraLarsenChang said...

I think your studies sound fascinating! I'd love an 'excuse' to do such indepth research. (I love research. That's practically the best part of illustrating for me. :-) And the sketches really are rather lovely... Do we get to see more?

lorna said...

Wow, it all sounds fascinating Puflet. Your drawings are beautiful too. :o)

slavick said...

what crap? this is a beautiful sketch!