I was reading about Celtic lore for February, the month of the snowdrop. The petals of the snowdrop symbolised death to the Celts so this week I had a look at lore surrounding death. The Celts believed it was unlucky to disturb the periwinkles that they grew on graves and also that it was unlucky to kill a raven. The raven itself is associated with The Morrigan, a terrifying Irish Celtic Goddess. She also goes by the name Badhbh which means crow or raven.
For this art journal spread I wanted to depict a raven, associated with an image of death, as a ghostly impression showing the link to the Otherworld. I chose a skull as an image of death and added periwinkles in a decorative way.
The first layer is of distress oxides giving a mottled, chalky background in a receding purple. Stamps were added with pigment inks and this layer sealed with workable fixative. I added matte medium to make sure the next layer had some tooth to adhere to. The skull was added using gesso and then inktense to provide detail in a loose way. I used watery inktense to create my ghostly raven and a few layers of inktense to add opacity to the periwinkles. The ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ text was added to emphasise the intimidating nature of the Morrigan.
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Currently only dispatching to U.K. addresses. Sorry for the inconvenience. Ceri xx
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