Raven Shield: Hand Painted Altar Card

Description

Raven Shield: Hand Painted Altar / Art Card on Carved Wooden Stand

This original one-of-a-kind artwork piece is a two-sided hand painted card, created using watercolor and ink pens on heavyweight watercolor paper card stock. It measures 6″ high by 4″ wide by 1/16″ thick. I have sealed the card with a protective wax finish to give it a nice satiny feel, which allows it to be handled without damaging the painting. I hand carved the stand for this card from a piece of walnut wood in the shape of a raven feather, and then painted with an ebonized finish and sealed with wax. There is a layer of cork on the bottom of the stand.

The image of a feathered shield is a compelling one to me – the softness of feathers carefully layered together to form a symbol of protection. In this design I used 10 feathers in the 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 arrangement of the tetractys – the all-encompassing Pythagorean symbol containing the wholeness of creation. Above the feathers is a Fionn’s wheel of Ogham characters, a shield within the shield, that spell out an ancient Irish word that translates as “shadow.” I created this not so much as a shield to guard against the shadow as a companion on the journey of exploring some of the darker areas of our souls.