A crimson gown for a golden witch

[bunn]

In which Rowena and Flavia choose thread for the new crimson gown they will weave for Rowena, while Saxons busily work on building Hengest's new settlement at Tanatus, a thrall carries water and a small boy runs past an old dog...


A pity the crimson of the thread has not really come out in the photo, it's redder in the actual painting. I'm not entirely sure about the clothes. Flavia's shoulder-brooch is right for the very early invasion era, but my reference for Rowena's green gown is a couple of hundred years later. Although I have to wonder if anyone really *knows* exactly what invasion-era Saxons wore with any degree of real accuracy. This seems like the kind of thing that would be hard to reconstruct from archaeology.

I tried to make Flavia smile, but I've not quite got it right. Maybe that will be version 3...

I tried to paint this before in watercolour pencil and it went horribly wrong. This is draft 2. I painted it first just in burnt sienna, then added the colours afterwards, which gave it a bit of a glow although perhaps it has come out a little orangy. This was the 'before colouring' version.

Comments

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I like all the detail, and the shadow and dimension on the white house. I do not have the patience for backgrounds on most days; drawing the characters tends to sap all my interest/attention. =D

From the one archaeology course I've taken thus far, yes, clothing is rarely preserved for a long time unless you get somebody who ended up in ice or in a peat bog while they were still relatively fresh. One might be able also to infer what materials they were working with from the type of sewing/tanning/cutting implements found at a site, but I doubt that has any bearing on styles/cuts. Other than that, one can only rely on what contemporary texts/illustrations/decorative art might imply AFAIK.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I am by temperament a landscape person, not a portrait person - I'm trying to learn how to draw / paint people, but I find it really hard!

I had intended this to be a scene with quite a dark vague background to throw the focus onto the two ladies in the foreground, but I couldn't resist putting in the background details!

There are almost no texts or pictures of people surviving from this period - it was a non-literate culture. Hence my doubts about whether anyone can really be that certain about what they were wearing...