My latest project is complete and it is a free download for patrons. It is a new take on the old and tired paper castle trope. This one is a breath of fresh air! It uses authentic medieval marginalia for the artwork. I love this project.
Be wary of the army of attacking killer bunnies.
Learn more about becoming a patron and joining in the quest to build a castle at:
http://www.starrynightcastle.com
While rummaging through an old bookstore in New Orleans Louisiana I stumbled upon this three volume set of books. They are very old but there are no title pages and no identifying information, nor a title on the spines or inside.
But, they are amazing books nonetheless and composed of all kinds of medieval architectural elements and all hand drawn in pencil. Just beautiful.
Finally made some time to go through them. How often do you find an old book with hand drawings of authentic cariartides, cartouches, stairs, balustrades, and more. Just amazing.
I am always amazed by someone with determination and patience. And this next castle that I want to talk about is an outstanding example of both determination and patience.
It takes determination to build a castle all by yourself. (A real castle). And it takes patience - 50 years worth of patience.
That's what it was all about with a man named Harry Andrews.
He returned from Europe after WWI. And after seeing castles in Europe he was determined to build his own right here in America.
And that's what he did. It is called Loveland Castle aka. Chateau LaRoche. It is located in Loveland Ohio.
I stopped in for a day visit to see this castle. It is open to the public. You pay an entrance fee then you can freely walk around the grounds and the internal parts of the castle.
I am on a quest just like Mr. Andrews; to build my own castle. But.... at my age I don't have the strength to build it myself. And I surely don't have 50 years left. I am going to have to raise the money and have someone else build it.
Learn more about the quest on my website here:
http://www.starrynightcastle.com
Here are a couple of pictures of Loveland Castle:
I burned some midnight oil and in the past three and a half days I turned the marginalia castle from an idea into a product for sale on etsy. It's been a whole lot of fun and I am very proud of the end product. 29 pages with 3 1/2 pages of medieval characters including an army of vicious attacking bunnies!
This is just such an unusual and unique take on the paper castle theme. I love this project.
Available on Etsy Here:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/StormTheCastleCrafts
This project is one of many in the epic quest to build a castle. The name of the castle is "Starry Night Castle" and you can learn more about it/join in the adventure on the website here:
http://www.starrynightcastle.com
I am a big fan of medieval marginalia. They are so irreverant, and fun; sometimes absurd or outrageous. Anyway, they are a wonderful art form.
And the idea just popped into my head that it would be a lot of fun to somehow transform this marginalia artwork into a paper castle that people could make. So, I am currently working on the castle and it is coming along great.
It will go for sale on etsy soon. But, it is going to be a free download for my patrons.
This is another project in the series of Starry Night Castle Quest projects.
To learn more about the quest to build a castle go to:
http://www.starrynightcastle.com
To learn more about being a patron go to the patreon page here:
https://www.patreon.com/starrynightcastle
Sounds a bit funny that I have an empty box for you as a gift. It even seems like a joke considering the fact that Amazon is shipping a zillion boxes a year! So there are lots of empty boxes around.
But this one is a bit special. It is something called a scene box. Also known as a tatebanko box.
You print it up onto card stock, cut out the pieces and put it together. From there it is still an empty box. Now your creativity can take flight and you can create some kind of scene inside it. I have done many of them with all kinds of scenes. And the most recent one is shown in the picture below. I took a vacation to the grand canyon and I used the grand canyon pictures to create my scene box. Fun project.
You can get the totally free PDF of the scene box on my website here:
http://www.starrynightcastle.com/free-scene-box.htm
When I think about the Redwood Forest I think about the words ancient and patience. There is a 500 mile stretch of land in California they call the Ancient Redwood Forest. There are trees there believed to be as old as 1500 years. That means they have lived a half a million days.
When you live a half a million days you develop a certain sense of patience.
I am just a man, an average guy. And I am on a quest to build a castle. Would you like to join in? Contribute?
Or maybe just follow along.
Go to StarryNightCastle.com
It is called the Castle Winery or Castello di Amorosa and it was built to 13th century standards with actual Italian Masons who were brought over from Italy. It is quite an amazing thing. I took a tour and spent a day there. They have all kinds of stuff there. But it just felt good to roam around and enjoy it.
This man built a castle. I want to do it too!
If you want to read more about my trip to the castle I have more on my website here.
I just released a new video to our youtube channel. It is pictures and music from the Renaissance Festival in Arizona.
It is a great Festival/Faire and one of the things I like most about it is the landscape backdrop. Most Ren Faires take place in a forest or wooded area. This one takes place in the desert and it has a beautiful backdrop of red mountain ranges. It is very Arizona.
My thanks go to all the people who gladly posed for pictures.
Remember: This is all about the quest to build a castle. To learn more or to join in visit the website at: http://www.starrynightcastle.com
I have been working on a new book. This is my 15th. It is a knife-making for beginners book.. And it is coming along really great. I am pro...
