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Saturday 1 September 2012

Assignment five - Seven Days - continued.



Research; there is a lot of varied information on this subject depending on which country of origin you are looking at, but most theories seem to confirm that the Greeks named the days after the sun, moon and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the "days of the Gods". The Romans substituted their equivalent gods for the Greek gods, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Venus and Saturn. The Germanic peoples generally substituted roughly similar gods for the Roman gods, Tiu (Twia), Woden, Thor, Freya (Fria), but did not substitute Saturn. The Germanic peoples adapted the system introduced by the Romans but glossed their indiginous gods over the Roman deities (with the exception of Saturn) in a process known as Interpretatio Germanica. The date of this introduction of this system is not known exactly, but it must have happened later than AD200 but before the introduction of Christianity during the 6th to 7th centuries, i.e. during the final phase or soon after the collapse of the Roman Empire.



SUNDAY: Old English Sunnandaeg, meaning “sun’s day”. This is a translation of the latin phrase, dies Solis. English, like most of the Germanic languages preserves the original pagan/sun associations of the day.
MONDAY: Old English Monandaeg, meaning "moon's day". This is likely based on the translation of the Latin name dies lunae. In North Germanic mythology, the moon is presonified as a god, Mani.
TUESDAY: Old English Tiwesdaeg meaning "Tiw's day" Tiw was a one-handed god associated with single combat and pledges in Norse mythology. The name of the day is based on Latin dies Martis, "Day of Mars" (the Roman god of war).
WEDNESDAY: Old English Wodnesdaeg, meaning the day of the Germanic god, Wodan and a prominent god of the Anglo-Saxons (and other Germanic peoples) in England until about the seventh century. It is based on Latin dies Mercurii, "Day of Mercury". The usual connection is that both Wodan and Mercury were considered psychopomps, or leaders of souls, in their respective mythologies; both are also associated with poetic and musical inspiration.
THURSDAY: Old English Punresdaeg, meaning "Punor's day". Punor means thunder or its personification, the Norse god known in Modern English as Thor. Thor's day corresponds to Latin dies lovis, "day of Jupiter", the chief of the Roman gods, wielder of the thunderbolt.
FRIDAY: Old English Frigedaeg, meaning the day of the Norse goddess Frige. The Norse name for the planet Venus was Friggjarstjarna, "Frigg's star'. Based on the Latin dies Veneris, "Day of Venus" was the Roman goddess of  beauty, love and sex.
SATURDAY: the only day of the week to retain its Roman origin in English, named after the Roman god Saturn, associated with the Titan Cronus, father of Zeuz and many Olympians. In Latin it was dies Saturni, "Day of Saturn".


I came across this poster whilst looking for ideas and inspiration and felt the hand-rendered font would 
work really well for the text to go along with my images. It has a sort of 'medieval' feel about it, almost like
something you would use to write Latin in, so I will be writing all my text in this.

Here are some examples of the hand-written font in capitals, I think they work very well.

Same again, but with upper and lower-case.

Sketch before scanning


Images above showing ideas for the Sunday page. Not keen on the top one as its too
bright and goes too far away from the brief of keeping the colours to a minimum but
I like the pale yellow one and may use a version of this for my final image.

Rough Thor sketch
For the Thursday image I have been playing with ideas of depicting the god Thor, but
seem to be going off the idea of using a picture of him and like the idea of something more
symbolic such as maybe just the hammer?


This is the sort of tone I am looking for in the Thor image. Just the hammer and a
hand with maybe some lightning to enhance the 'thunder god'.


Now we're talking! Pretty pleased with this. Just need to add the text and title. I think
the image conveys the feeling of power but is not too fussy.

I need to get on with these hand-fonts!
more to come...

Well the hand-fonts are done finally and have been scanned in, live-traced in Illustrator and are
ready to place, along with my images. I intend to present each image in a landscape format, in the
shape of a postcard. Each of the illustrations are quite different in style so can stand alone but
are laid out in a similar way, with the same type-face (hand-drawn), and can also
stand together as a set with their contrasting colours.



Monday - based on the Old English meaning of 'Moons day', I've stayed with my original
sketch, based on the theme of the 'man in the moon'. I've inversed the originally black type and
image to aid visibility against the dark blue 'moonish' blue.

Monday Final
Tuesday - based on Tiw's day, I went for the obvious image
of the one-handed god proudly showing off his arm.

Tuesday Final
Wednesday - Wodin, or Wodan, apparently the father of 
Thor. I am aware that the three images so far are quite different in 
style, but still think they sit together well.

Wednesday Final
Thursday - Thor's Day. See above for idea behind
this image. My favourite so far....nice and punchy.

Thursday Final
Friday - For this one I was toying with a figurative image to show off
the Goddess, Freya, or Frige, but decided to go with the minimalist view, 
based on an image by Milton Glaser. Although simple, it still
looks playful and sexy.

Friday Final
Saturday - Saturn's Day. In this instance I decided to go for a more
detailed sketch of a statue of Saturn. I really like the contrast of
the grey-toned sketch against the solid background. Apparently
he was quite a nasty character...ate babies....allegedly.

Saturday Final
Sunday - going back to the more graphical approach, and along the 
same lines of the 'man in the moon' but this time, with the face of the 
sun. I've repeated the image throughout, and tried to keep the 
colours complimentary to each other.

Sunday Final
So there it is, finished. It seems this final exercise had taken me the long
way round, and I'm aware that I've started off on one road, gone quite a way down it,
but then decided to stop and go off in a completely different direction. Art is
subjective, so it doesnt neccessarily mean I've taken the correct route, but I feel
like I've arrived at the required destination and I'm quite pleased with the result.
Besides, don't they say its as much about the journey as the destination?