June - Week 3

Written 24/06/2025, Updated 25/06/2025

The Story of Blodeuwedd

I realised that I never gave much context for the story of Blodeuwedd last week, oops!

You can find more information on herWikipedia pagebut the TL:DR is that she was a woman created from flowers by two sorcers, Math and Gwydion, to be a wife for a guy called Lleu (who was cursed by his mother to not have a wife, she had her reasons). Blodeuwedd resents being forced into this life but has little choice. She then falls in love with another man called Gronw and conspires with him to kill Lleu (who can only be killed in a very specific way) by unfortunately this doesn't work and Gronw is killed and Blodeuwedd is transformed into a owl. (This is generally seen as a punishment as owls are hated by other birds so cannot show their faces at day, very cruel for a woman made of flowers. Some interpret this 'punishment' as unintenionally freeing her as she is no longer bound to any one - or even the ground).

I personally see Blodeuwedd as a tragedy of a woman who never had autonomy, she didn't ask to be born, or to get married and she is punished for trying to be free. Most versions of Blodeuwedd tend to be rather sexualised or focus on her beauty (since flowers - and owls - are beautiful things). I want to show the messiness of her birth, childbirth is very traumatic and Blodeuwedd was literally forced to be born by two men who wanted to immediately control her!

Sketching ideas

Due to the amount of detail in Artemisia's painting I did quite a bit of practise. The first thing I decided to do was practise 'scumbling', a painting technique used by many Baroque artists. In summary it is when a thin layer of paint is applied to a dark canvas with a dry brush to create shadows (to contrast greatly against the light parts of the painting). I usedthis blogas a guide.

I didn't have a canvas to spare so I painted three black squares in my sketchbook and practised a woman's face, a sphere and some grass in this style. Whilst sketchbook paper isn't the BEST medium for this I think the effect works? (Better than I expected anyway)

A somewhat ghostly looking woman's face on a black background (her eyes and mouth are blank) — Did this first, though did some extra additions after doing the sphere. It looks a bit haunting (which kinda works for what I'm going for...)

A sphere with very dark shadows — Thought I would practise a sphere since it is a 3 dimensional shape with deep shadows. The white background is several layers of paint. I think the shadows work well here...

Green grass and a blue sky with black shadows seeping through — Meant to be grass in a blue sky, I think there IS a shadow effect but I think I would need several layers in the lighter areas to properly 'build up' the effect

Then, I actually did a quick sketch of the underpainting of Susanna and the Elders as I think the more visceral expression fit the idea for my final piece more.

Sketch of Susanna and the Elders, Restored by Kathleen Gilje. Based on Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi

I then decided to do some quick draft ideas of what I want the final piece to vaguely look like, since I thought it helped last month to do that BEFORE practising specific details.

A cartoony sketch of a woman clutching grass and crying, there are two men behind her and a small owl in the top right corner — The men don't look cruel enough here...

A cartoony sketch of a woman rebuffing two men and looking annoyed at them, an owl is flying in the top left corner — She looks a bit flippant here..

A cartoony sketch of a woman sobbing and clutching the grass around her as two men loom over her. An owl is perched on a tree in the background — She's trying to "shut" the grass, I also wanted to convey mud (soil is muddy and grimy)

These all look a bit different, but you can see that they all contain Blodeuwedd in an unwanted position, Math and Gwydion looking over her and an owl in the background (to be honest, I'm not fully sure what the owl is there for but it felt right to include one nonetheless).

Since the facial expressions are so important to the original painting (and Artemisia's work in general) I decided to practise these first. For Blodeuwedd I found a photo of a woman in agony and drew that, I honestly think it looks really good!

The men (Math and Gwydion)... look men are hard. I also couldn't find the right expression just by using a Search Engine and using words like 'creepy' or 'malevolent' so I decided to look up known arsehole men (specifically Andrew Tate and JD Vance) as references and what do you know I found some cruel epxressions!

A sketch of a man with a wide face grinning menacingly, his mouth slightly open — I think his face looks a bit too goofy here, half open mouths are hard to look good

A sketch of a man with a wide face smiling menacingly, his mouth is closed — I think the shut mouth looks better and more intimidating

A sketch of a man with a thin face smiling cruely, his mouth is closed — I based this on Andrew Tate but he doesn't look like him much, does look horrible though

I then practised the nature-y aspects of the piece, the grass and the flowers used to create her (hard to verify all the flowers, they mainly say broom, oak and meadowsweet flowers but I also saw primroses mentioned)

A pencil sketch of long grass (looks a bit like the leaves from a daffodil - it always comes back to daffodils!) — The blades kind of look like the leaves of daffodils, maybe because I'm used to drawing those!

A pencil drawing of meadowsweet and primrose flowers — I think the flowers look pretty good but a bit flat?

A pencil drawing of broom and oak flowers — THe 'oak flower' looks mainly like leaves? And the broom flower is hard to shape

I then did some more face and anatomy practise, focusing more on whole body poses.

A pencil sketch of a woman crying in agony, cluthcing the tall grass around her — I wanted to practise the long grass, she looks really anguished which works

A portrait of a woman's face that is meant to look like it is covered in mud (hard to convey with no colouring or shading) — She looks a bit... fishy? I THINK the hair is clumpy though? Hopefully would look better with colour

Cartoony sketch of two men standing in a overbearing way, one with folded arms and the other leaning forward slightly — I think these poses make these men look horrible (they will mainly be obscured but good to have the whole body)

I then decided to do the bane of any artist's existence... HANDS!!!!

A pencil drawing of three hands clasping, two of the hands clasping thick blades of grass — I think these hands look okay? I think capturing the movement helps with how it looks even with some anatomical issues

A pencil drawing of a hand, with dots to reference the joints to get a more anatomically accurate drawing — Hand anatomy is very hard...

I did a painted draft of what I'm planning on doing. I want the sky to have heavy clouds to make it feel ominous as well as the men's faces being in shadow to make them more sinister. Blodeuwedd is being 'born' like how babies are - bloody (or muddy in this case) and crying. The flowers will be scattered around her and she is clinging to the grass for dear life. The owl (which I forgot to practise - oops!) frames the scene, and it is weeping (because it knows the story that will entail?)

A gouache painting of of a woman sobbing and clutching the grass around her as two men loom over her. An owl flies ahead, almost framing the two men with its long wing span — The colours will be more deep in the actual painting

Oh, and to prepare for the final piece I also painted my canvas black with a thin-ish layer of oil paint (I used a roller). It wasn't quite as uniform as I'd hoped but hopefully after being painted it will look okay?

An A2 sized canvas, painted black (it is slightly patchy in colour)

How the process is going

I feel like I am SO BEHIND! I mostly did this practise over this past weekend and I didn't really do any in the week (which I had planned to) because it was SO HOT!!!! This feels more like an excuse though as I could have grabbed one of my fans (and honestly the downstairs of my house wasn't THAT hot all things considered), but I am if nothing else a massive procrastinator!

Anything I have learnt

I learnt a lot about scumbling, how it works and how to do it which will be very useful :) I also think that my years of practising drawing have helped me with my practise this week. In that I already know the basics of drawing faces and bodies so the faces and bodies didn't need a ton of sketches to look 'right' (I have never pretended to be a true beginner, just an amateur with no truly formal training).