Celtic – francescaross.co.uk

Candle

The seed for this design began with the Northumbria Community’s Celtic Daily Prayer Book 2 meditations for Day 3 and Day 31 which are excerpts from William Brodrick’s The Sixth Lamentation, and in particular the line ‘We have to be candles’.

I started with a layout doodled in the notebook I carry round with me. By the time we were on retreat at Nether Springs in February, I had most of the design in place, and the colours worked out, and included a motif from my ‘Wings and Waves Celtic Cross’ design to tie it in with previous artwork.

We had seen the effects of Storm Arwen in toppling trees and taking out power lines, but it seemed to me that that would be nothing compared to a storm at sea, where the squall would not just fill the sky but the sea that the boat rested on would be wild and incredibly dangerous. That led to the design of the border as a surrounding stormy sea, but with the candle flames reaching out into it.

Celtic Daily Prayer

I have recently completed the illustrations for the section dividers for Books 1 and 2 of Celtic Daily Prayer published by HarperCollins in September 2015. This is an example of one of the dividers

I also designed and drew the artwork for the covers.

May the road rise up to meet you

May the road rise up to meet you (Hollow of His hand)

Ink

23 x 16 cm

When I read the words of this prayer, I loved the image of being held snugly in God’s hand and wanted to combine it with lines of Celtic patterns and colours to go with the lines of the prayer (yellow for sunshine, green for fields, blue for wind and rain and brown for the road).

This design is available as a greetings card from the Northumbria Community online shop: http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/product/hollow-hand-greetings-card/

Labyrinth

Quilted patchwork made from silk

49 x 49 cm

I love the patterns of labyrinths, particularly the medieval circular ones, and decided to make one using squares of silk to form the path.

This design is available as a greetings card from the Northumbria Community online shop:

http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/product/labyrinth-greetings-card/

I dyed the silk to get the deep brown and copper colours for the first labyrinth, and decided to tie-die some other pieces of silk at the same time. I used them to make the same pattern, but with the path a solid colour, and the surround like ripples in a puddle. I then added glass beads, small shells and chips of tigers eye to give variety to the path.

Gaelic Blessing: Deep Peace

The Gaelic Blessing

Ink

20 x 20 cm

When I read the words of this prayer of blessing, I wanted to combine them with a celtic-style pattern. I finally settled for this, and used inks to give the glowing colours for the background. Then I was listening to a cd of friends’ daughters singing, and realised it had a tune as well!

This design is available as a greetings card from the Northumbria Community online shop: http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/product/deep-peace-greetings-card/

Rachel chose this picture as her favourite, and says ‘This is my choice because I remember it when it was a song on a cd…watched as it developed through line drawings, noted its corrections and finally viewed the finished item. Its beautiful simplicity hardly reflects the amount of effort spent on it. It will always be my favourite!’