Get knotted

I was reading in The Book of The Book of Kells the other day what tools the monks would have used to create the designs. It was all simple stuff, compasses, straight edges, French curves, quill pens, brushes and pointed sticks.

All the designs I've drawn so far have all been free hand. So I decided to have a go at a more accurate drawing. I don't have George Bain's book (note to self: must get hold of a copy) so I had to work it out from scratch.

And there was much scratching Awa Rich, you musv rubbed that rubber away.

It took me most of the day trying things out and scratching my head, making adjustments or starting again. This is the result, though it might be a schematic for part of the Large Hadron Collider.

These are the sketches I did earlier. You can see the scrap of paper I drew them on in the photo above.

I photographed them with the iPad, cropped them and then opened them in the Autodesk Sketchbook Pro app.

The small sketches are units for a larger design so I duplicated the layer containing the unit, rotated and moved each layer and filled in the gaps on a new layer to make the design below. It's a bit messy but it was only a proof of concept.

You'll soon be fluent in WaffleSpeak and BizzyBabble if you keep this up Awa Rich.

That seemed to work, so I did a slightly neater version.

I noticed that if I overlapped the points of the heart/pretzel shaped part I could interlock the whole design.

And here's the same thing using the design drawn with instruments.

(I seem to have acquired another keyboard dyslexia tick, there is no h in desighn as there is no u in Yourkshire).

No there int Awa Rich, you vact your wayt out of there to London.

Stay tuned for the finished version. That'll take me another couple of days. No wonder it took so long to create The Book of Kells.

By the way. Last night, while Marie was out with her office comrades at a swanky restaurant, I watched The Secret of Kells again - a brilliant animated story about the origin of The Book (that turns darkness into light!)

It's a dramatisation of the known facts and a ripping yarn. Watch it for the story, the design, the shapes (you'll see what I mean when you watch it) the illustration, the backgrounds, the music, the characters, the magic, the mythology, the jokes, the cat and the messages both hidden and explicit.

Stay with it as the end titles roll for a wee treat as the late Mick Lally (the voice of Brother Aidan) recites the poem Pangur Bán - in Gaelic, written by an Irish monk in the 9th century about his cat.

Get hold of a copy, it'll restore your faith in 2D animation. Suitable for children of all ages. The wolves and the Vikings are pretty scary though, but all is well in the end.