I started this project really unsure of where I would take it, I felt very limited being restricted to creating just a banner not 3d work. Even after the trip to Alnwick to explore the area and the previous years work I was still stuck on what I could produce. I decided my next step would be to research into Alnwick, this took me into the Alnwick castle site and I started to read up on the history of the place, specifically the Percy family who have been residents to the castle for over 700 years. As history is something of a fondness I have I looked into the Percy family in more depth. I particularly found the stories of Hotspur to be most interesting. Hotspur is known as one of the most famous knights in history, and was fighting in battles by the time he was only 14 years of age.
While trying to think up what I could make for the piece, I had considered perhaps a painting of hotspur, or some form of embroidery but both of which I don’t have much experience with and was unsure on what imagery I could even use. Whilst thinking of other ways I could make work without having to paint I remembered a technique called a ‘proggy mat’ I had first seen this at a historical fayre I had went to when I was younger, and had revisited it during my GCSE art course. I thought this may be a good technique to use as it was something I had done and enjoyed before. While researching into proggy mats I found that it was a very popular technique in Northumberland and seemed only fitting for the project based around Alnwick.
Now with the technique I would use taken care of I was left with thinking about what kind of imagery I would produce using it. I had considered perhaps a landscape of the castle, or the Percy lion statue that stands on the bridge near by. However, these didn’t quite feel right and felt quite basic. I was looking at the Northumberland coat of arms that we had been shown in a presentation and was wondering if that was the Percy family’s coat of arms and if that was different. I decided this would be a good step to research so I looked into what the Percy family coat of arms looked like, I found out that it had changed a lot throughout history and was able to find Hotspurs personal coat of arms and his fathers before him.
Originally the coat of arms had been just the Percy lion with a golden background, once Hotspurs father ‘The Early Percy’s’ wife died he remarried to Maude de Lucy. Her coat of arms was of a set of three pikes upon a red background. They connected the two coat of arms into one creating a patch of four, two of the lion and two of the pikes. Hotspurs coat of arms was a take on this new crest only with a red banner at the top being added. I considered both The Percy lion coat of arms and Hotspurs coat of arms to be the final design for my piece. In the end I went with the Percy lion on its own as I felt that Hotspurs crest was much too detailed and with the technique and size a lot of the detail would be lost and it wouldn’t look as good in the end result.
Up next came the choosing of the fabric, in a few testers I had done I used some scrap satiny-material and the fabric was much to thin and floppy so didn’t quite work right. I went around a number of different fabric stores looking to find what the best fabric choice would be, I ended up choosing a fleece material that had nice bold colours and was thick and strong. I cut small strips of the fabric of about 8cm long and 2cm wide, I also ordered a potato sack from amazon as I found that the hessian at college was a bit to wide and didn’t hold the fabric well. I cut the potato sack open to make it larger in size and was happy with how big it would be, I didn’t want to make it too big and be unable to finish it as I had never made a proggy mat to such a large scale. Next I needed to figure out a frame to stretch the sack to have it tight to better be able to make the mat, I needed to have a frame that was easy to dismantle so that I could work on the piece from home. After talks with the workshop I found it was best to make a simple canvas frame but instead of gluing it together I would just use screws to attach them so I could easily take it apart to travel home with. For the design I used the projector to draw the image of the coat of arms I had found on a site called WappenWiki this had a nice quality image to it. Once this was all done I was able to begin the process of making the mat. This actually took a lot less time than I had originally expected it too but still took a long time to make, I doubt that I would have been able to make the piece much bigger and still have it completed in time.
Now that the proggy mat was complete I needed to figure out the best way to hang it, I considered having a piece of doweling attached to the top of the mat, however that wouldn’t have held the weight of the piece very well, I also considered having doweling at the bottom as well however the piece was made into a shield shape so would have looked odd having a rectangular shape to it. I also considered cutting out a shield piece from a piece of wood and attaching it to the backside of the mat, but I really liked both sides of the mat and didn’t want to loose one side of it from the wood. This then helped to inspire the frame option I ended up choosing, this was to make two shield shapes and have the mat sandwiched between making the mat be framed from both sides so I wouldn’t loose either side. The technician made this frame for me during a contextual studies session so I wasn’t there for the making of it, once I was finished we both stabled the piece to one side of the frame and covered it all in wood glue, the technician then screwed in lots of screws to tighten the bond between the two frames. This only left me with the task of varnishing the wood to protect it from the weather. Originally I was only going to leave it as the wood it was, however when going to buy the varnish I found a mahogany wood stain that I really liked the look of and painted it with that before painting on a glossy yacht paint. I am really happy that I chose to add the wood stain as it helped make the piece seem grander and older like a true coat of arms that once would have hung on the castle walls.
Overall I am extremely happy with the outcome of my piece and it came out a lot better than I originally thought it would. I don’t think there is anything about this piece that I would change if I were to repeat the project or had longer to complete, that said I would definitely like to try this technique again in future projects as it is one that I have enjoyed the process of making and the end product.
Maeve Dawson Art 