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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Slainte!




DragonFire copyright Cari Buziak of Aon Celtic Art

You might not be wearing green, and you might not be having corned beef and Irish whiskey (or green beer) for dinner, but if you're at all artistic I'm willing to bet you've admired Celtic knotwork. I've bought a lot of books on illumination and knotwork, but so far none of them are as good as Cari Buziak's site, Aon Celtic Art.

If you've ever wanted to learn to do knotwork (I DO!!), there are fantastic free tutorials at Aon, and if you're serious about it you can do a distance-learning apprenticeship to learn how to do amazing stuff like she does. Or, if you think you just haven't got the patience and talent to do it yourself, you can order her clip art CD. If you'd like to incorporate some knotwork into your craft but don't want to spend the time to draw it yourself, she also has cross stitch and bead weaving patterns (the spiral bracelet is freeware!).

Or, just buy yourself something pretty for St. Patrick's Day. Check out her Celtic jewelry, t-shirts and posters (and more!)

By the way, the Gaelic toast "Slainte" is pronounced roughly "slancha" and means "good health." In closing I give you a few good Irish blessings:

May you get all your wishes but one,
So you always have something to strive for.

May the best day of your past be the worst day of your future.

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,
The insight to know where you are,
and the foresight to know when you've gone too far.

4 comments:

Athena's Armoury said...

I love knotwork, too. This is probably my favorite in her gallery:

http://www.aon-celtic.com/cgallery/cgallery43.html

Theresa said...

Cool site!! Just for that you get an award from me. Stop by my blog to see what it is.

storybeader said...

love the dragon!

Jennifer MacNeill said...

Gorgeous artwork! I've always wanted to learn how to do knotwork.