Sunday 26 October 2008

Teen Gawain pastel


There, my first Gawain in multicolour :-). I did this pastel exactly one week ago, but didn't upload it earlier because I wasn't able to take a photograph of it. For some reason, pastels don't scan - or I don't manage to scan them, in any case. I was waiting for some daylight for the photograph, but all week I come home when it's already dark outside. Then yesterday the sun shone, but I forgot all about the photo X(. And today was cloudy. So I finally took a photograph with artificial light, which never looks very good. The colours here are therefore not as they should be... I'll try to do better :-).

I don't seem to manage to use pastels like pastels, do I? I always try to make them smooth... I can't help it: I just like detail :P. So I always do a pencil picture first, and then colour it. I always go back with my pencil to make the lines sharper, too...

5 comments:

Cecilia said...

Oh, but he is red-haired! Weren't all in Middle Ages blonde? ;) The only one I remember described with dark hair is Roland/Orlando, who is also described squint-eyed and stocky...

I understand what you say about names. When I was at the high school I started imagining about writing an historical novel settled in medieval Latium (just because I visited a splendid Cistercian church in South Latium). But I kept giving my characters the names that first came to me, mindless if they were used in Middle Ages or not. The female protagonist was called Niseide (Greek name found in Greek dictionary, meaning "daughter of Niso"... no way that someone in 1180 would be called that way), the male protagonist was Riccardo di Harembourgis (a Franco-German name found somewhere, also improbable in Latium), and his cousin was called Selinor (invented distortion of Alienor-Eleanor...). I just liked the names, and for me the whole question of their historical consistency was pointless :-P
So in recent years I kept preferring semi-historical settings, where nobody could say "ah, that was improbable". Because I'm the first, in novels by other authors, to point out historical inconsistencies.

But with Arthurian matter, I think everybody knows it's a legend sprouted from historical basis (just like the Rolandian legend), and if you retold the legend, you have the right to use the name forms you prefer :)

ampersand said...

Heehee! Yes, in most epics Gawain is blond too :D. I have one early twentieth-century comical novel in which his hair is dark brown (and he's very handsome, not like Orlando :P). The image of him as red-haired is a twentieth-century invention, I think... I have tried to trace where it comes from, but the earliest source I can find (so far) is T. H. White's "Once and Future King", where Gawain(e) is not only red-haired, but speaks with a Scots accent too :-). In any case, I like the idea of his having red hair because I don't know of any other "classic" heroes who do.

LOL! I had the same name thing going on in my schoolday stories... So now I want at least to try being consistent! I was already drifting towards the well-known medieval versions of the names - but I'm not so sure about medieval settings. There is already the problem that Geoffrey of Monmouth and Chrétien de Troyes wrote in the 12th century, and Malory 300 years later - those are very different worlds. And they were all writing about a distant past. So I think I might be best off going for that distant past, with heroic fantasy bits attached :-).

Yes? No?

Cecilia said...

Well, when I think of the Arthurian matter, I tend to have a XII century setting in mind. I mean, when I think to Chrétien de Troyes, which is my main reference for it and who obviously wrote in c. XII.
I've learnt only in recent years that the historical Arthur probably lived at the end of Roman Empire, and that was because of the "philological" movie King Arthur (that basically bored me). When I watch Arthurian and Arthurian-like movies, I'm ok if they dress them in an early medieval fashion, but my main mental image remains that of a following setting. Especially if I think of the ladies' fashion, I have a XII cent. fashion in mind.
I don't know if this can help you - it seems that I have confused opinion on the matter too ^^

As for red-haired heroes, if my memory still assists me I think that Hector is described as red-haired.

ampersand said...

Hector? Tsk - I ought to reread my Homer...

I have just finished reading Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century account of King Arthur, and he says that the battle of Camlann ("Camblam") took place "in the year 542 after our Lord's incarnation", which is the timeframe I like to observe. I guess I just like the idea of the possibility of a historical Arthur, even if I also want all the magic and faeries, who are not very historically plausible ;-). If you place the story in a 12th-century context, you just *know* that Arthur couldn't have existed then. The 6th century, on the contrary, is still rather vague and we don't know who ruled Britain then. (Okay, admittedly whoever it was, it wasn't a king with a round table full of knights, but...*g*)

Cecilia said...

Ah, you make me remember that in the whole Italian cycle of Aspremont (composed at the beginning of the XV century; the Aspromonte in prose by Andrea da Barberino dates 1430 ca.), which is one of the cycles about Roland, the battle of Aspremont is set in 780 or 783 aD. But the precision of the date wasn't considered at all in the description of the whole contest, which remains totally XV cent-styled.