December - Week 3

Written 13/01/2025, Updated 14/01/2026

Sketching ideas

So, it turns out I had the flu over Christmas! Basically from Boxing Day until about the 4th of January I felt so rough. Genuinely shocked I managed to do anything towards this project over the Christmas holidays.

So, I drew from my Irish heritage for this piece. Ireland and Palestine have historically been very connected in their struggles and there is a lot of solidarity from Ireland to Palestine (I will say this is mainly from the Irish PEOPLE not the Irish GOVERNMENT). I actually have a keffiyeh from Palestine that was made in the colours of the Irish flag. So I thought drawing from that side of my identity made a lot of sense when taking inspiration from a Palestinian artist.

I specifically decided to focus on the Easter Rising of 1916, as while the Rising itself ended in defeat it then led to eventual Irish Independence, so hopefully one day full Palestinian independence can occur? I decided to draw some of the women involved in the Easter Rising in Laila Shawa's artstyle (from her paintings with fully visible faces). These women likely won't be very recongisable in my final piece but I still wanted some historical basis.

The four women I decided to focus on (there were many more I could have done) were Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell, Margaret Skinnider, Countess Constance Markievicz and Helena Molony. I will link to more information about them at the bottom of this page.

Pencil sketches women's faces in the style of Laila Shawa — I copied two faces from paintings of hers and then drew faces from photos before 'stylising' them like how Laila Shawa drew faces. I initially also planned to have Brigid's face in my final piece but abandoned that later on.

Something else I knew I wanted to draw from was St. Brigid's cross. A straw cross is carved on her feast day - this is a Christianisation of an older pagan festival called Imbolc that occurs in early February (between the solstice and the equinox) celebrating the Celtic goddess Brigid. It is a symbol of protection and is also a symbol of Irish nationalism (especially after Irish independence).

Pencil sketch Brigid's cross, an uneven cross make from straw as well as a small concept idea of many faces surrounding the cross — I thought of a basic concept with many faces but felt the background wouldn't be very visible and I like the black background of the Hands of Fatima

I sketched out several concepts for a vague idea of what to do.

Pencil sketch of Brigid's cross with a face in the middle, each quarter of the page also has a face — I thought maybe having each face in a segment could work with Brigid's face in the centre but felt like there wasn't enough unity between the women that I think is important to The Hands of Fatima

Pencil sketch of a face in the centre of a cross with faces in each quarter and a sketch of St.Brigid's cross where the centre is four faces rather than a square — The one on the right has a similar issue to the first concept I did but the one of the left felt 'right' with the women together even though I was a bit sad that I had to cut Brigid herself out of the piece. But I think it's for the best.

So, like how Laila Shawa had her figure's hands making as the hansa, I wanted my figures to make the cross image from their forms. Which is why I decided to have four 'main' figures - one for each arm of the cross. So that's what helped me decide which concept worked best.

I then did a more detailed concept in pencil and then a practise painting. As I was researching St. Brigid (and the Celtic goddess Brigid) I learnt about Brigid's flame - a flame that was maintained for centuries in Kildare until the suppression of the monastaries by Henry VIII. Much like the cross, the flame symbolises protection so I thought fire would be fitting imagery. Since fire is primarily orange, I thought that having the colours (besides the black background) be orange, white and green would then harken to Ireland's flag. So I decided to have the arms be green to symbolise the cross and the rest of the women's bodies be a white colour. This is different to Laila Shawa's vibrant colours but I really liked the idea.

Pencil drawing of four women stood in front of a fire. Their arms are stretched out to form St. Brigid's cross. The fire has many pairs of eyes staring from it. — While drawing this I thought of adding the darkened eyes to show that there were many more women involved in the Easter Rising, and it harkens to The Hands of Fatima with the blackened eyes.

Painting of four women dressed in white stood in front of a fire. Their green arms are stretched out to form St. Brigid's cross. The fire has many pairs of eyes staring from it. — I decided to make the eyes green rather than black initially due to having more green paint left over but I thought it worked very well against the orange.

However, after showing the painting to my partner they pointed out some issues with the imagery - the cross looked a bit like a swastika and in conjunction with the flames (and I also noticed the white dresses could add to that) looks... unfortunate. I didn't want to abandon this concept though so I decided to take another stab at it.

Painting of four women dressed in green stood in front of a fire. Their white arms are stretched out to form St. Brigid's cross and they are clutching straw in their hands. The fire has many pairs of eyes staring from it. — I think the lighter orange works better here too.

I added some straw to their hands to make the shape more like the ends of Brigid's cross where the straw is tied up. I think the green dresses work better since they pop more against the orange flame. For the final piece, I do want to add more detail to the dresses and flame (using different shades of green and orange) but this is a good 'proof of concept'. Looking at more images of St. Brigid's cross for this blog I think making the arms thicker would be a good idea.

How the process is going

Genuinely not really sure how to even gauge that to be honest. Like this was meant to be finished last year so without that deadline I am feeling a bit aimless. I suppose I'm getting this done so that's good? The actual art process is going fine?

Anything I have learnt

The things I have learnt this month have been about Irish history and mythology. Here are some links I found interesting: