This one being a cow’s arsed bishop, or if you take the view that these are satyrs, a satyrical bishop.
And this time I took a progress shot to show how much life the white brings to these pieces
dyes are, weld, woad, madder, cochineal, logwood and my compound brown
This blog is solely for textiles, with a little bit of silversmithing now and then, and will mainly be for my historical stuff.
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My interests range from ancient greek to tudor periods, and I tend to be an artisan rather than an academic - not that I don't do research, I just prefer getting my hands dirty.
I dye, spin, weave, sew and embroider, and have been doing so for several decades...
If you click on the thumbnail images in this sidebar, they will take you to tutorials and finished pieces
opusanglicanum 
Is he going to be framed? I tempted to have him as well…
He is, although I was going to wait a while and do four and just get them all framed at once. Three and four are going to wait a couple of weeks though as I have a small comission and an article to write for a magazine first, which will take at least two weeks of my sewing time (the article being mainly a case of sewing and taking pics of it). If you want him I can get him framed for you, or perhaps you should drop strong hints with the medeival historian and he could come and do some chirstmas shopping at the IMC
What an amazing collection of characters! They look brilliant in your clean and even stitching. I’d like to know how you did the dying with the cochineal. Was is a purchased dye or all from “scratch”?
The face is cochineal, just beetles that I ground up, I’ve never used the extracts you can get. That very pale fleshy pink is( I think) the sixth wash from the bath
Neat! Where do you get the beetles? I occasionally see them at my friend’s ranch in Ramona but I can’t imagine finding them all in one place in her yard. Not enough to dye anything, anyway, or we would have already tried it.
Dyeing suppliers, in the uk George wiel. The whole point of the beetles though is that they were hard to collect and therefore expensive. American cochineal are meant to be much easier to collect than European kermis, hence the fact that kermes production almost ceased within decades of the discovery of the new world. I can get kermes from time to time but it’s£5 per gramme whereas cochineal is £5 per 100g.
Ah! Good information. Thank you very much. 🙂
The effect of the white is magical, isn’t it? Another wonderful character – he looks rather sad- perhaps his back legs embarrass him a little?
He does have his tail wrapped around them, but then I’m not sure bishops should look cheerful when preaching fire and brimstone.
He clearly needs his crozier to prop himself up, too!
The white makes a huge difference, doesn’t it – the odd little flourish that produces all the “sparkle” in the design..
Do you know, I hadn’t even thought about the physics, that crozier is pretty much a third leg, isn’t it?
Yes – satyrs are generally depicted as upright on their haunches, whereas this fellow has his human body at the front of the goat body, rather like a centaur, but without the front legs!
They’re very odd little creatures, which is why I think cows arse bishop suits him better than any other name. I don’t think ambulatory practicality was at the forefront of the artists mind though
A crozier to lean on would be completely redundant for a four-footed creature, after all..!
Still, as you say – Practicality? What’s that?
I think bishops mainly have croziers for poking heathens like me anyway, not for walking
It’s supposed to symbolise their role as Shepherds of the flock…
Hence the heathen poking