Sir Gawain & the Green Knight

(A Prayer for Christmas Eve, C.nick Arach, 2010)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a fourteenth century alliterative poem and this scene depicts Gawain finding a castle in the distance on Christmas eve, after he has prayed for a place for mass . The castle and the armour is fourteenth century same as the poem.

"Thus in peril and pain and plights hard through the
country wanders this knight all alone til Christmas eve. At that tide to
Mary he made moan that she might direct his riding and lead him to

some dwelling."

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by W.A. Neilson




C.nick Arach

The Black Cat

(The Black Cat, C.nick Arach, 2010)

This is inspired from the short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe. It is about a man's decent into crazyness, he ends up killing his wife and bricking up her body but he mistakenly bricks up the black cat as well. I intended it to feel surpressing and claustrophobic as little streams of light come through a crack in the wall.

C.nick Arach

Top's Jump

(Top's Jump, C.nick Arach, 2010)

This sketch is from Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island". It shows Top (the dog) jumping in the balloon in a storm during the group's departure. The balloon tells the story of their stay on the island.

C.nick Arach

Through the Fish Glass

(Through the Fish Bowl, C.nick Arach, 2010)

This is a sketch of a fish looking at himself in the side of his bowl and seeing the kid staring at him.

C.nick Arach

The Weighing of the Brain

Your brain is made up of two hemispheres a left and a right, these sides of the brain control different functions. It is the difference between literal and contextual, exact and approximate, optimism and pessimism.

Why have I opened a post this way? Because my sketch depicts a judging of the hemispheres. It's bare bones right now but when I paint it, I hope to base the figures off the different gods and goddesses that control logic, wisdom and creativity, inspiration.

(The Weighing of the Hemispheres, C.nick Arach, 2010)

C.nick Arach

Is that a Dagger?

("Is that a Dagger that I see before me?", C.nick Arach, 2010)

This drawing was inspired by the dagger scene from Macbeth:

"MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw."


*Notice how the frame tells the story up until that point.

 

You can find the painted version here.

C.nick Arach

(Balyn in his wheels, C.nick Arach, 2010)

This is a sketch of my dog Balyn (a corgi). He is in the front seat of the car looking into the mirror.


I got this idea from riding in the car with him on my lap.

C.nick Arach

The Study of Sherlock

(Sherlock's Study, C.nick Arach, 2010)

This sketch is from the "Musgrave Ritual" a short story from "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes". It depicts Sherlock's study as described by Watson in the beginning of the story:

"But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distinctly an open-air pastime, and when Holmes, in one of his queer humors, would sit in an arm-chair with his hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room was improved by it."

That's it for now,

C.nick Arach

Flora's sunny afternoon

(Flora's Sunny Afternoon, C.nick Arach 2010)

This sketch was inspired by "The Turn of the Screw" a novella written by Henry James. This 'ghost' story is about a governess who takes charge of two seemingly perfect children, but then the 'ghosts'of two former servants start appearing. Are there ghosts? Or is she mad? Literary critics are still debating.

This sketch is of the lake scene where Miss Jessel watches a playing Flora.

C.nick Arach

The fair Emily, a Knight's Tale

(The Fair Emily, C.nick Arach 2010)

These sketches come from the story "The Knight's Tale" from the "The Canterbury Tales" .

It is about two cousins who are prisoners in a tower that looks out upon the courtyard. One day they chance to see the fair Emily who is out strolling in the beauty of the day. Instantly they both fall in love with her (yeah right!) and a feud breaks out between them. This feud ends in death (most sensible, really).

C.nick Arach