Statement of Intent.

For my final major project I intend to create a hand-bound and illustrated book of reinterpreted stories from medieval bestiaries. I have selected 5 animals to paint; a crow, dove, stag, fox and rabbit. I selected these animals because their stories from the medieval books I have found particularly inspiring, and because they are fairly common animals that I want to refresh peoples perspective of. Each individual animal will have a watercolour, gold (eaither paint, gel pen or leaf) and fineliner illustration inspired by medieval bestiary art and illumination as well as the artists I have studied - such as Kay Nielsen, Lesley Ann Ivory and Ulisse Aldrovandi. I want to combine the bold medieval inspired backgrounds, borders and gold accents with more detailed, observed illustrations of animals more often found in modern field guides and nature books. This is so that my illustrations are fantastical and vivid as well as having elements of truth; so that viewers might rethink the commonplace animals I have selected and view them as something more enchanted.

I plan to use a coptic binding for my book; an ancient metod of binding which ties in with my references from the middle ages. I plan for the pages to be water-colour paper so that I am able to paint directly onto the book pages. I want my paintings to be roughly A5 landscape; small enough so that I am able to paint a larger quantity of pages and so the book has something small and precious about it.