Work in Progress...

Over the last few years, I've been sporadically working on a project which aims to revisit the Bronze Age metalwork of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.  I was lucky enough to get funding for it a while back, which meant I got to tour various museum collections in various locations (including London and York, as well as a couple closer to home), taking photographs, notes and drawings of the metalwork.

The backlog's been bugging me ever since - with all my efforts going towards getting the thesis published, there just hasn't been any time to do anything else.  But since the thesis finally got shunted out the door in January, I've been playing catch-up.  All my original drawings have to be inked up to publication standard, a task which I usually attend to during my teabreaks.

My choice of assignment has been random each time.  I've got a big pile of folders, so I grab one from the middle and take pot luck.  Most of the objects are fairly banal.  Socketed axes, flat axes, etcetera.  I've not really thought about posting pictures on them here, because nothing's really stood out. 

Until now. 

Every once in a while, you stumble across something that makes you sit up, and go 'wow!'.  My last object, a spearhead from Langstilly near Lochwinnoch, was one of these artefacts with 'wow' factor.  But not even this can match my current objective, the Early Bronze Age hoard from Gavel Moss.

Here's a photo of the hoard, which was found near Lochwinnoch, not very far, incidentally, from the place where the Langstilly spearhead was abandoned at around the same time.  Lochwinnoch seems to have been a Very Important Place in the Early Bronze Age:-

 

The hoard is usually displayed in Kelvingrove Museum, so next time you're passing through, keep your eyes peeled for it. 

Even though it was found in 1796 of thereabouts, the hoard was preserved for posterity, though a few fragments of 'bronze armour' (perhaps a bronze item similar to the Mold gold cape?) fell to pieces on excavation and were subsequently discarded.  Even more importantly, the finders left a reasonably detailed account of the circumstances of its discovery, for which I salute them!

The hoard dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age, and is roughly contemporary with the late phases of Stonehenge and the Bronze Age cemeteries that include the likes of Bush Barrow.  And roughly contemporary with the flowering of Minoan culture, too.  The metalwork belongs to the 'Arreton Down' tradition, which is named after a type hoard recovered from the Isle of Wight.

With regards to the drawing... 

The procedure in every case is the same.  The objects are drawn at a scale of 1:1 at the museum.  Most people use graph paper, or tracing paper over graph paper, but I use a much more laborious method which utillises a hand drawn grid on plain, good quality paper.  I much prefer this technique, because it means I can add detail to the interior while retaining the remnants of the grid for reference.  Even though constructing the grid adds extra time, I can still whack through an object in an hour or two.  I think I was churning out socketed axes at the rate of one every half hour when I was doing my thesis and spending weeks on end drawing artefacts...

My first objective in the Gavel Moss hoard is the dagger.  Here's the original sketch, just to show you how it all starts off.  Both faces are drawn, with a blade section:-
 

 

This original is then reproduced at a larger scale (A4 to A3) before the drawings are inked up to publication standard.  Daggers and swords are quite easy to draw because they're flat - it's only when an object gains height that getting the proportions right gets tricky, and then it involves all sorts of shenanigans involving calipers...

I shall post pictures of the final inked versions once they're done!
 

Work in Progress...

Over the last few years, I've been sporadically working on a project which aims to revisit the Bronze Age metalwork of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.  I was lucky enough to get funding for it a while back, which meant I got to tour various museum collections in various locations (including London and York, as well as a couple closer to home), taking photographs, notes and drawings of the metalwork.

The backlog's been bugging me ever since - with all my efforts going towards getting the thesis published, there just hasn't been any time to do anything else.  But since the thesis finally got shunted out the door in January, I've been playing catch-up.  All my original drawings have to be inked up to publication standard, a task which I usually attend to during my teabreaks.

My choice of assignment has been random each time.  I've got a big pile of folders, so I grab one from the middle and take pot luck.  Most of the objects are fairly banal.  Socketed axes, flat axes, etcetera.  I've not really thought about posting pictures on them here, because nothing's really stood out. 

Until now. 

Every once in a while, you stumble across something that makes you sit up, and go 'wow!'.  My last object, a spearhead from Langstilly near Lochwinnoch, was one of these artefacts with 'wow' factor.  But not even this can match my current objective, the Early Bronze Age hoard from Gavel Moss.

Here's a photo of the hoard, which was found near Lochwinnoch, not very far, incidentally, from the place where the Langstilly spearhead was abandoned at around the same time.  Lochwinnoch seems to have been a Very Important Place in the Early Bronze Age:-

 

The hoard is usually displayed in Kelvingrove Museum, so next time you're passing through, keep your eyes peeled for it. 

Even though it was found in 1796 of thereabouts, the hoard was preserved for posterity, though a few fragments of 'bronze armour' (perhaps a bronze item similar to the Mold gold cape?) fell to pieces on excavation and were subsequently discarded.  Even more importantly, the finders left a reasonably detailed account of the circumstances of its discovery, for which I salute them!

The hoard dates to the end of the Early Bronze Age, and is roughly contemporary with the late phases of Stonehenge and the Bronze Age cemeteries that include the likes of Bush Barrow.  And roughly contemporary with the flowering of Minoan culture, too.  The metalwork belongs to the 'Arreton Down' tradition, which is named after a type hoard recovered from the Isle of Wight.

With regards to the drawing... 

The procedure in every case is the same.  The objects are drawn at a scale of 1:1 at the museum.  Most people use graph paper, or tracing paper over graph paper, but I use a much more laborious method which utillises a hand drawn grid on plain, good quality paper.  I much prefer this technique, because it means I can add detail to the interior while retaining the remnants of the grid for reference.  Even though constructing the grid adds extra time, I can still whack through an object in an hour or two.  I think I was churning out socketed axes at the rate of one every half hour when I was doing my thesis and spending weeks on end drawing artefacts...

My first objective in the Gavel Moss hoard is the dagger.  Here's the original sketch, just to show you how it all starts off.  Both faces are drawn, with a blade section:-
 

 

This original is then reproduced at a larger scale (A4 to A3) before the drawings are inked up to publication standard.  Daggers and swords are quite easy to draw because they're flat - it's only when an object gains height that getting the proportions right gets tricky, and then it involves all sorts of shenanigans involving calipers...

I shall post pictures of the final inked versions once they're done!