A Sketch of Balyn (my Corgi)  as John Steed from “The Avengers”.

C.nick Arach

A life sketch of one my neighbors.

Robert Burns

I just finished my Burns Night project, so I am all set for tomorrow. It’s a sidewalk chalk drawing of Robert Burns, under it is the last verse of “Scots Wha Hae”:

“Lay the proud usurper low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!-
         Let us do, or die!”

C.nick Arach

The Moment

("The Moment", C.nick Arach, 2011)

Inspired by Dostoyevsky's "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man"

C.nick Arach

The Start

The Start, Graphite, C.nick, 2012

For those of you familiar with Dog Agility, have you ever wonder what the dog sees on the start line? I have and the above is the result of it.

C.nick Arach

Leonardo says,

 

“And if you, O poet, tell a story with your pen, the painter with his brush can tell it more easily, with simpler completeness and less tedious to be understood. And if you call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as paintings; for, though poetry is able to describe forms, actions and places in words, the painter deals with the actual similitude of the forms, in order to represent them. Now tell me which is the nearer to the actual man: the name of man or the image of the man. The name of man differs in different countries, but his form is never changed but by death.” _ Leonardo da Vinci

This drawing (a sketch for my bigger work “The Artist’s Table”) is done in silverpoint, which is basically a little silver rod. Leonardo himself used it, as did a lot of other Renaissance artists. For more info on silverpoint I’ve posted these links:

Silverpoint Web
Wikipedia: Silverpoint

 C.nick Arach

 

For Edgar,

 

My pen is behaving badly (yes I am blaming the pen), it took me two tries to get it right and I’m leaving it up to you to decide if it is right.

Today (January 19) is Edgar Allan Poe’s Birthday so in honour of the occasion I’m posting the pen sketch above. One of my favourites (couldn’t pick just one) from his work is “The Gold-Bug”, what’s yours?

C.nick Arach

The Raven and the Writing Desk

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
    Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
    A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunt about thy shape
    Of deities or mortals, or of both,
        In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
    What men or gods are these?  What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit?  What struggle to escape?
        What pipes and timbrels?  What wild ecstasy?
                                                                Ode on a Grecian Urn— John Keats

So what are the two best known lines of this poem?

Cu Chulainn

(Death's Harbinger, C.nick Arach, 2012)

This is a depiction of the death of the Irish hero Cù Chulainn, Cù Chulainn was a feroucious fighter so much so that no one believed him dead until a raven appeared. Cù Chulainn's name comes from an incident in his youth when he killed a gaurd dog belonging to Culann, to make up for the death the then Sétanta changed his name and became the hound (Cù) of Culann gaurding Culann's house until a replacement could be trained. Because of that name sake Cù Chulainn has a geas (a taboo) placed on him forbidding him from eating dog meat, it is the breaking of this geis that marks the beginning of Cù Chulainn's death.

 C.nick Arach

Beowulf

  (Beowulf: Wyrd's Call, C.nick Arach, 2011)

"The hoard-guard heard a human voice;
his rage was enkindled. No respite now
for pact of peace! The poison-breath
of that foul worm first came forth from the cave,
hot reek-of-fight: the rocks resounded.
Stout by the stone-way his shield he raised,
lord of the Geats, against the loathed-one;
while with courage keen that coiled foe
came seeking strife. The sturdy king
had drawn his sword, not dull of edge,
heirloom old; and each of the two
felt fear of his foe, though fierce their mood.
Stoutly stood with his shield high-raised
the warrior king, as the worm now coiled
together amain: the mailed-one waited."   -Beowulf

Beowulf has been a favourite of mine ever since I was ten, for me at that age the story held adventures (with dismeberent) and interesting words (like Gloaming), I was pretty much in a sadistic literati barbarian child's heaven. Coming back to the poem as I grew older I became drawn to how the Beowulf poem deals with death, the inevitability of it, and how the poem shows that the dragon was alive as well and that two lives were lost. I am also fond of Wiglaf alluding to Beowulf's bravery might also be stubborn pride.

"At the mandate of one, oft warriors many
sorrow must suffer; and so must we.
The people's-shepherd showed not aught
of care for our counsel, king beloved!
That guardian of gold he should grapple not, urged we,
but let him lie where he long had been
in his earth-hall waiting the end of the world,
the hest of heaven.-This hoard is ours
but grievously gotten; too grim the fate
which thither carried our king and lord."  -Beowulf

C.nick Arach