Quote:

I really like the direction your work is going in. I may have to commission you again, just to see the differences.

Thanks again Patrick.

Also as you had your arms done with me before I will do the arms again at a significant discount – in fact PM me on that when you are ready for them and I will let you know the particulars.

Did I ever give you my price sheet to begin with? It has changed twice in the last six months, so let me know when you are ready. And thanks again for the comments… it is the only way to progress.

Donnchadh wrote:

Ton, thanks. it always comes down to : does the picture look right

the mayfly problem can be solved by putting the mayfly on the wreath and if you curved the fish a little bit more it can be seen to be lured to it.

Thanks Ton. Good idea. I will play with it to see which way I like it.

One more question for everyone on my work. I’ve found myself beginning to focus in on certain design-style elements and I am not sure that is good. For instance, after finally reading Abp. Heim’s work on Catholic Heraldry I read that he drew several styles of hats to show that an artist can be free to employ different design ideas and still be correct.

So, I am wondering if I narrow in on a certain favorite design style if that is not a good thing for me at all. What do y’all think?

Donnchadh wrote:

...So, I am wondering if I narrow in on a certain favorite design style if that is not a good thing for me at all. What do y’all think?....

Denny,

Regardless of what shield and critter Abp. Heim emblazoned, regardless of the different styles of hats .... they ALL display his artistic style.

I think your artistic/design style is mostly developed by now and perhaps only minor stylistic changes will occur in future.  Whatever you draw—heraldically speaking—will still contain your design style.

If you focus on a particular motif—a certain helmet, ecclesiastical hat, or mitre, etc., .... they all will show your unique artistic style.  You needn’t worry about being too narrowly focused—as long as you maintain the ability of drawing other types of helmet etc. when you want to.

Cheers,

—Guy

What Guy said!!!

Donnchadh wrote:

One more question for everyone on my work. I’ve found myself beginning to focus in on certain design-style elements and I am not sure that is good. For instance, after finally reading Abp. Heim’s work on Catholic Heraldry I read that he drew several styles of hats to show that an artist can be free to employ different design ideas and still be correct.

So, I am wondering if I narrow in on a certain favorite design style if that is not a good thing for me at all. What do y’all think?

If you would like to see more of Heim’s work try to get hold of his "Liber Amicorum" in this book he displays all kinds of heraldry.

I would suggest that you start with a fresh mind with each design, we all have our favorite things we draw and how but trying something else from time to time is not bad either, for instance when I painted your arms I wanted to do something else with the mantling then I normally would do and it turned out rather well

Donnchadh wrote:

Joe, so I will be in line with an American tradition if I do hatchments, right? I am leaning towards doing it now and I would really like it if I were using American heraldic practices if I did. Granted that history seems short by your comments, but at least it is there… right? Or am I grasping at straws there? I am still considering doing some sort of drapery instead, so if I don’t go the hatchment route I will maybe go that way… is that kosher either? This is very important to me as I was very close to Paddy and I’d like to do this all up right on as many levels as I can think of.

I can’t imagine that anything you would do to memorialize your uncle through his arms would actually be wrong; you can drape a picture of the deceased with black crepe, so why not the arms?

As to hatchments, I double checked Zieber last night, and what he said was that hatchments had been customary in what is now the US but had fallen out of use.  He listed five or six examples of old hatchments that survived at the time he was writing (late 19th century), but several of these are what we now know to be schoolgirl embroidery projects that were conventionally done (in the Boston area) on hatchment-shaped backgrounds, not actual hatchments as such.  The Heraldry Journal in the 1860s—published by the group that became the NEHGS Committee on Heraldry—asserted without citing any particular evidence that hatchments had once been commonly used in Boston.

According to several sources, there are only two actual surviving hatchments in the US, one at Christ Church in Philadelphia and the other at St. James Parish, Goose Creek, in South Carolina.

All that said:  just because a custom passed out of fashion is no reason that it cannot be revived.  I think it’s an excellent way to apply heraldry so I say go for it.

FYI:  Example of embroidery project in form of hatchment, arms of Howe quartering Babcock, by Hannah Babcock of Milton, Mass, 1785, from the Hogg Collection at the University of Houston:

http://www.fm.coe.uh.edu/comparisons/images/t39_hatchment_md.jpg

I seem to remember a hatchment or two at Shirley Plantation in Charles City County, Virginia.

Perhaps one is over the doorway in an image on this page:

http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/jamesriver/shi.htm

Unfortunately I cannot find a larger image.

Regards,

/Charles

Charles E. Drake wrote:

...Unfortunately I cannot find a larger image….

Neither could I, but I did find this:

http://www.colonialpolocup.org/cpc_clip_image001.gif

Perhaps these Arms are depicted in the hatchment or hatchment-like embroidery?

—Guy