Spin Spin Spin

Last Christmas, my in-laws bought me a couple books of Celtic designs and modern knotwork. One of the books was "101 Celtic Spirals," by Courtney Davis. It includes spiral designs from early Celtic stone carvings and metal work (2nd-8th century AD), the (relatively) more modern stuff from the illuminated manuscripts (Book of Kells, Book of Durrow, Lindisfarne Gospels, etc.), as well as contemporary Celtic motifs from sources around the world working today. It was really a great resource for working on a new style of art for me.

I started out with basic spiral designs, and liked them so much, I haven't stopped playing around with them since.
The ones above I liked a lot, but the image was too low-resolution to order a print from my DeviantART gallery, so I decided to make a similar set with my watercolor pencils (also a gift from the in-laws):
The colors are sort of washed out, there, but it actually looks pretty good in real life.

As I got more acquainted with the traditional Celtic styles, my interest turned toward the illuminated manuscripts. If you've never seen pictures of the art in these books, go look up "Book of Kells" on Google Images. The detail work is unbelievable. I honestly don't understand how a person can get the kind of precision with paint-and-brush work that these monks were achieving. I can barely make lines that small using a specialized extra-fine pen! This was one of my illumination-style attempts at spiral work:

My goal, more or less, was to see how closely I could fit lines in next to one another without actually touching. My specialty Uni-Ball Signo bit 0.18 gel pen was very helpful.
Not a great picture, but it can give you some idea what the detail work is like. the circle is about 2.5" across.
And sometimes you've just got to combine traditional techniques and modern technology.