DRACO head lincout project

The war standard of the feared ancient Dacians, inhabiting generally speaking the territory of present-day Romania, was a mythical hybrid creature, half wolf, half snake (or dragon, hence the name DRACO). One of my recent linocut projects envisaged the creation of prints inspired by this motif (previously discussed on the blog HERE).

Lino block for the DRACO

I made several variants, changing the color of the typographic ink, the color of the paper, and a couple of texture effects (whipping out part of the ink for example) - that have been eventually excluded from the final selection of prints to be framed.

See more color combinations and prices HERE and more about the Dacian draco and its ancient depictions HERE.

Handmade leather wallet with DRACO

Atelierul de istorie continues with their tooled leather projects inspired by history and popular depictions.

The latest wallets are inspired by the ancient Dacian civilization, namely by the war standard of this people, the half wolf-half snake DRACO. The different variants of such crafted leather wallets to be found on the website, HERE. They are produced for Romania - with one larger pocket for the ID card. Each wallet is entirely made by hand - cutting, tooling, dyeing, sewing, burnishing.

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Ancient Dacian owls

As artifacts indicate, the ancient Dacians were keen on depicting animals - real, exotic, or imaginary. Among them one finds frequent representations of aquatic birds and owls. The latter are very sketchy and some have interpreted such images found on silver and gold bracelets as simple palmettos. I choose to believe they are in fact abstracted owls and was inspired to created a small series of handmade leather earrings. The earrings include various color combinations and decorative effects - hand cut and perforated. They can be acquired via my online store.

Owl leather earrings - 1.5 cm in length

Handmade leather earrings inspired by ancient Dacian owl depictions

Detail of the palmetto/owl part of various types of Dacian gold spiral bracelets

Detail of such an ancient Dacian gold jewelry piece

Project linocut calendar 2016

Linocut is tricky and messy (at least in my case:), so designing a callendar in this technique went through several stages. At first, I though I would print all 12 pages and then have them scanned and multiplied. Naturally, there were mistakes (the writing backwards part gets me every time). They might have been photoshoped, as I was happy with some of the monotipy effects. Still, the question of funding remained unresolved....

Then, I tried to have a one-sheet calendar, with all 12 pages on a single sheet for printing economy, but that proved too crowded. The difference in page color was also difficult to manage for a Photoshop amateur as myself.

So, the third variant was the simplest and cheapest, of a table top calendar with one element in linocut and the dates printed and attached. The folding was not so easy, but I figured it out eventually, so there it is: the calendar for all Dacian lovers, as the chosen motif is the ancient war standard of the Dacians, the Draco, that can be bought from my online store, at http://atelieruldeistorie.ro/calendar-2016/

Ancient Dacian interest

There is a raise in interest towards the mysterious ancient civilization of the Dacians and there is are a number of items on Etsy inspired by such an interest. Romanians living abroad in particular are striving to rediscover one of their less-known ancestors.

 Such artifacts are made in a various of techniques and mediums: small cast figurines, silver jewelry, wood carving, leather dying and tooling, and linocut prints.

Atelierul de istorie

Our online shop is almost two-years old and its doing good for such a young age :))

In 2008 apARTe and VIRTVS ANTIQVA NGOs have started collaborating for an online shop that presents original artworks and handmade products inspired by the civilizations of Antiquity, mainly Dacian and Roman, employing as much as possible natural materials such as leather, textile, ceramics, metal, and glass. The "History Studio" / aka Atelierul de istorie, has been present at several reenactment festivals and events in Romania and is very active online.