The Lady of the Lake, known under more than one name in the King Arthur legend (Nimue, Vivien and Nyneve being some of them), plays a big role in the legend. The beginning of the fall of the legendary kingdom of Camelot starts partly by her hand. Merlin, who was deeply in love with her, taught her everything there was to know about magic. Nimue's feeling, though, were not as strong as Merlin's and as he had thaught her everything, she locked him up in a tree with an enchantment. Merlin couldn't think of a single spell that could help him out and so he died, being locked up alive in a tree. Nimue had gotten rid of her lover. King Arthur had now lost his beloved tutor and councelor; the beginning of the end for the kingdom of Camelot.

Now, you'd think The Lady of the Lake was a real villian. This was actually not the case; she had also done good deeds. One of them being giving Arthur the legendary sword Excalibur when he was in need of one. This was also the sword he fought his last battle with, the battle of Camlann. After his death the sword was taken back to the lake by Sir Bedevere and thrown in there. An arm – Nimue's arm- then caught the Excalibur and so the sword returned to The Lady of the Lake.

She was also one of the three women who brought Arthur to Avalon, his last resting place, after he had died.

                                                                                                          

Prominently pictured in my painting is the Lady of the Lake. Clad in dark blue -like a deep like- she's holding Excalibur firmly in her hand. Near the sword there lies an old oak-leaf, referring to Arthur's courage. Just like Arthur, this leaf is now also death. The Lady is sitting by the lake on which a white lotus is visible, which stands for the love for Merlin that had faded away.

If you look up now, to the right, you can see a big tree standing there at the edge of the painting. This is Merlin's tree. Since Merlin and Arthur belong together, I deciced to place Camelot, King Arthur's lifework, in the distance “next” to the tree. By the tree, fern has grown, this symbolises magic, which is what Merlin possessed and what he is now known for by most people.

Not only fern grows by this tree, some vervain is also to be found here, on the left side of the tree. This plant stands for “enchantment”, which is what kept Merlin captive.  Apart from the vervain, the lavander rose that the Lady holds also symbolises this enchantment. The last bit of flower symbolism used in this painting is the cherry blossom situated in the upper-left corner of the painting. These precious little flowers stand for education; Merlin's gift to the Lady of the Lake.

 

I prepared myself for “the big work” (the real painting on canvas) with lots of sketches, colour try-outs, background information and such in a sketchbook. Not very surprising I managed to fill a whole sketchbook with this preparational work. I'll upload some sketchbook pages when I've gotten back my sketchbook.

 

The whole of this -the book and the canvas- took me 142 hours to finish completely.  A  lot, but every single hour (what am I saying? Minute!) was completely worth it, since the result of all this work is great in my opinion. Hard work does pay off.