Mister Berntsen, beautiful rendering!  I can easily photo edit the eagle image to lose it’s tuft (and maybe shorten it’s beak) and I really appreciate you putting that together!

I’ve sent the example in an email to my dad, along with mentions of all of your suggestions.  I am inclined to agree that the embattled division looks way better than the dovetailed one, and definitely hints at a "Garrison" canting!

Also, I get a great sense of which examples had more merit based on all of your input (and thankyou for your compliments on my attempts at art, I certainly need practice, but I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be a lost cause to try and improve, haha).

The reason I included azure in the examples was that blue is my dad’s favorite color.  I personally like sable, especially contrasted with or (though I hope a red-tailed hawk will be different enough that fans of the Hapsburg Eagle won’t be alarmed).  I might take the advice of going with the hawk on an argent background, thus reducing the number of tinctures and see if my dad is happy with that.

tmp617;67850 wrote:

As for soaring, the hawk could be attempting to get itself over the wall, an interesting symbolism, if it fits the armiger.

I agree, per aspera ad astra and all that, especially seme of mullets.

tmp617;67850 wrote:

I really like Mr. Berntsen’s rendition, per Fr. Sylvester’s suggestion.

As for soaring, the hawk could be attempting to get itself over the wall, an interesting symbolism, if it fits the armiger.

A most noble interpretation in my opinion.

JBGarrison;67852 wrote:

The reason I included azure in the examples was that blue is my dad’s favorite color.

Well, that’s sufficient reason to include blue, since they’re his arms.

Why not make the hawk blue with a red tail as well?

I think the bird looks better black than blue. Also, black and red is better combination than blue and red. I don’t like the seme idea. Are the mullets necessary? Unless there’s some particular reason to have them, I’d play with the idea of dropping them altogether. An empty chief in Claus’ depiction would look nice.

Fr Byers suggested:

"What about: Argent a hawk displayed Sable beaked langued membered and queued Gules above a base embattled Sable?

I would let the mullet go. Two charges (hawk and base) are enough."

Harking (hawking?) back to Joe’s suggestion of the star in dexter chief to allude to the State flag—the base (in this case embatteld) also visually alludes to the red stripe at the base of the State flag—so I’d keep them both:

Azure a red-tailed hawk (colored & doing whatever you like - volant or whatever) between a star in dexter chief and a base embattled both Or.

Alternatively, Argent a hawk volant Azure tailed Gules between in dexter chief a star and a base embattled also Gules (others can likely blazon these more gracefully)

Michael F. McCartney;67986 wrote:

Alternatively, Argent a hawk volant Azure tailed Gules between in dexter chief a star and a base embattled also Gules (others can likely blazon these more gracefully)

I’d thought of the star and base Gules to evoke California’s flag; but, unless the armiger is a particularly ardent California sectionalist, being from California doesn’t impress me as being particularly distinctive. It’s a quality shared by how many million people?

Its true that there are millions of families in California, but the relevant question IMO is, how many Garrisons (families/lineages, not military barracks and within that, how many that will use red-tailed hawks in whatever colors Jeff settles on.  The bicolor birdie will be the main & most distinctive charge; the star & base merely lesser ones.

But that just me…

Indeed, the bi-color birdie coule be entirely unique, however, my dad is currently considering whether the hawk is an emblem he wants to adopt.  Since he’s seen an example of Mister Berntsen’s art, he’s taking the whole thing alot more seriously.  A good thing, and yet, now I will have to wait much longer to see what he decides, haha.  I keep pestering him to brainstorm more.

One thing he mentions is that he wants the mullet to be a mullet of 8 points, with the vertical and horizontal points being longer than the diagonal points (I’ve seen only one example of a blazon for mullets with varying point lengths in all of my searches and it was for a mullet of 10 points (5 long and 5 short), and this was a recent invention to my knowledge; not a historical precedent).

I guess he wants his star to look like something off of Carl Sagan’s "Cosmos" or perhaps the idealized Star of Bethlehem or some such.  Again, I suppose he wants to be unique.

In my opinion, if someone is going to be showing off their individuality, it should be done in the crest and not the shield per se.  The shield should focus on clear design (such as would be needed on a medieval battlefield for friend or foe recognition) while the crest should flaunt the argmiger’s individuality and spirit.

FWIW (being myself a grandfather six times over and for far too long the senior surviving male in my line) give your Dad the honor of choosing. You can shape the options to ensure that whichever he chooses will be good heraldry, but in future years, and future generations, the expression of his personality and character will mean more than the fine points of whatever arms you might pressure him into adopting just to please you.

I absolutely agree with you Mister McCartney.  I am somehow managing to remain patient while awaiting his decision on a design.

I thought I’d ping and see how he’s doing.

I’ve ressurrected this subject with my dad, and he wants to think about just using the 8-pointed mullet as a charge with an embattled line somewhere to allude to the name Garrison.  He wants four mullets to represent his four children and one larger mullet to represent himself.

We talked it out and he likes the following blazon:

Argent, a mullet-of-eight points sable, on a chief embattled sable, four mullets-of-eight-points of the first.

My only problem is that he wants his mullets-of-eight-points to have elongated rays to chief, base, dexter and sinister with the diagonal points shortened.  I have no idea how to blazon that in any concise manner.  I looked up "compass star" all over google and found that the term is used by the military institute of heraldry, but that their compass star has all points shortened, so there doesn’t seem to be a valid precedent for an eight pointed star like he wants.

Someone please haaalp! heheh.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/loaba/CompassRose.png

I believe that you could blazon this as a Compass Rose. If you have access to Photoshop or Illustrator, then I’d be happy to forward you a 300dpi .psd file for your perusal.

-Jon

Thankyou Jon.

Do you think I would need to specify an 8-point compass rose to differentiate from 32-point wind roses or other variations?

Also, do you think that blazoning this as a compass rose would require the internal lines of the shape (which give it the 3D effect), or could these internal lines be left out to leave just the overall shape while still using the "compass rose" term?