Celtic Art and Knotwork

My fascination with Celtic art began several years ago while studying the Uncial script in my calligraphy classes.

Starting in 1996, I have given weekend workshops to members of several calligraphy groups, including York Scribes (York, England!), where I was able to pass on the Andy Sloss method for creating Knotwork.

Click on the thumbnails below to see examples of knotwork generated using this technique.

There are links to some other excellent pages on Celtic themes below, including to our own Celtic Gallery - do e-mail us if you know of other interesting sites!

Examples of Lesley's knotwork
Click to see a close-up ... Click BACK to return here....

After some exploration of alternative methods, the following examples show a different type of result, and are generated using the method of Sheila Sturrock - as outlined in her book "Celtic Knotwork Designs":

I am now working on a complete alphabet of letters decorated with Celtic knotwork. Click this thumbnail to see an example - the "H":

You can see more examples from the celtic alphabet, with examples of their use - and other celtic designs - on our galleries:

Bibliography:

This is my book of Celtic Borders and Motifs: a source book published by Search Press, and available from all (surely...) good bookshops and always from the nice people at Amazon :-)

And I'm quite impressed to have an ISBN all of my own!

I can strongly recommend ‘How To Draw Celtic Knotwork’, by Andy Sloss: more details on the Celtic Creative Home Page. Also recommended is a fascinating little book by Mark van Stone, ‘Celtic Knotwork’.

For inspiration in design and colour I would also recommend ‘The Celtic Art Source Book’, by Courtney Davies.

Some of our favourite artifacts are in various forms of stonework. Our page about Wales has examples of knotwork from some of the celtic crosses we regularly seek out in our travels around Britain. Click the thumbnail on the right to see an example of the work of Reg Beech - an artist working in Wales. This is one of his slate carvings, coloured with wax. The real thing is about 2 feet (60 cm) across.

Other Interesting Links :

Interesting Books:

Too many to list here - click the book to see the list, click BACK to return here.

The work illustrated on these pages represent the creative effort of Lesley Davies. None of these designs should be considered public domain. It is commonly and wrongly supposed that all Celtic designs are ancient and therefore free from copyright restrictions. The truth is that new, traditionally correct designs often look as if they could be very old, but they are none-the-less the intellectual property of the artist. Use of copyright designs by anyone other than the artist requires permission in the case of personal use or a licensing agreement in the case of commercial use. All rights reserved.

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