Creating Celtic Knotwork: A Fresh Approach to Traditional Design
By Cari Buziak
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About this ebook
Whether you're a complete beginner or have already attempted to learn the art of Celtic knotwork, this is the book for you! Artists at all levels will treasure this guide, which not only demonstrates how to duplicate patterns from a rich and varied gallery of examples but also how to take the next step to creating your own unique designs.
This newly revised edition of Creating Celtic Knotwork features a wealth of added material and revisions. Author Cari Buziak draws upon her extensive teaching experience to present easy-to-understand, well-illustrated instructions that explain all the basic techniques of Celtic patterns as well as the art's meaning and history. In addition to spirals, mazes, and step patterns, the designs include dragons, hounds, and other animals as well as human forms. Exercises and tips encourage experimentation that will allow you to develop your own variations on traditional forms. Information on drawing tools, painting materials, transferring patterns, and other practical aspects will help you get started right away.
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Creating Celtic Knotwork - Cari Buziak
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Cari Buziak
All rights reserved.
Bibliographical Note
Creating Celtic Knotwork: A Fresh Approach to Traditional Design is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2018.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Buziak, Cari, author.
Title: Creating Celtic knotwork : a fresh approach to traditional design / Cari Buziak.
Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, Inc., [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034178| ISBN 9780486820330 | ISBN 0486820335
Subjects: LCSH: Knotwork, Celtic. | Drawing—Technique.
Classification: LCC NK1264 .B89 2018 | DDC 746.44028—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034178
Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications
82033501 2017
www.doverpublications.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is dedicated to my dad and my sister.
I love you both very much!
Contents
The Basics
Getting Ready
Basic Celtic Knotwork
Modifying The Basic Knot
Knotting Variations
Exercises
The Trefoil Knot
Borders & Corners
Borders
Corners
Knotting in a Ring
Crosses
The Celtic Cross
The Ringed Cross
Spirals
Double Spirals
Triple Spirals
Joining Spirals
Maze & Step Patterns
Maze Patterns
Step Patterns
Zoomorphics
Snakes and Dragons
Snake To Dragon Transformation
Turning a Knot into a Dragon
Celtic Animals
The Celtic hound
The Celtic lion
The Celtic Bird
Celtic People
Celtic Man
Celtic Woman
Hairstyles & Beards
Vine & Chalice
Techniques & Materials
Transferring a Design
Pen and Ink
Acrylics
Watercolors
Paper
Biography
Dot Paper
Dot Paper: ring style
Getting Ready.
To create Celtic knots I use a technique that’s based on a gridwork of alternating big and small dots. The dots create a pattern that allows you to make new knotwork designs easily and even in shapes other than just rectangles or squares, as you’ll see later in this and other chapters. This book includes a few sheets of ready-made dot paper
for you, but to create your own is easy.
Photocopy the sheets in the back of this book before you begin working. That way you’ll always have a master page to copy from and won’t have to make dotted paper again for each project!
Normal graph paper is made up of a series of squares all over the page. You can sometimes purchase it with bigger or smaller squares, depending on the size of knot you want to create. If only one size is available it can be scaled up or down using a photocopier, or made from scratch at any size using a computer.
Using different-colored markers or a pen, alternate coloring one big dot, followed by a smaller dot, all across the page of graph paper. Make sure that as you move down to the next row you continue to alternate the dots. If there is a big dot above in the previous row, then below it there should be a small dot, and so on. Once the whole sheet is covered, make a photocopy before using it—that way you won’t have to make it again next time.
Basic Celtic Knotwork
For clarity, in my examples I will display only the big and small dots and not the graph paper lines.
To make your first knot, mark off a box anywhere on the sheet, at least 5 big dots and 4 little dots across. Mark the same distance down (5 big and 4 little dots) so you have an even square. For the dot system to work properly, make sure box corners are always on a BIG dot.
Each small dot is going to be an intersection where two ropes
of knots are going to cross over each other. Begin to add a double-lined X
over the little dots within the marked-off box, with each set of the X
lines running to either side of the little dot like a tic-tac-toe board tipped on its side.
Continue drawing a double-lined X
over each little dot until reaching the box border. Do not X
the little dots that lie right on the border line, just those that fall within the border. Your big dots never get crossed over by the knot. Think of the big dots as posts that the knot must bend around to follow its path. You will find that the X
patterns will meet up on the diagonal, which is correct. If you’re making a very large knot, you can make this step go faster by using a ruler and just drawing a line along the diagonal of the little dots. However, when you begin to make very complicated knots, the X
method keeps things from getting tangled up because it’s easier to see clearly what’s going on as you proceed.
At this point,