Painting the ‘Knight of the Skies’

You may remember the Lincoln Baron’s Trail in 2015 where I was fortunate enough to have a couple of designs chosen. Well this year, there’s yet another ‘Wild in Art’ trail to celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the Battle of Lincoln and the sealing of the Charter of the Forest. This time there’ll be 36 Knight Statues around the City of Lincoln, from May 20th – September 3rd 2017. At the end of the trail in October, they’ll once again be auctioned off, raising money for the Trussell Trust.

As soon as I heard news of another trail I submitted designs straight away, bearing in mind there were a few briefs for Aviation themes – a specialty of mine. I was delighted to hear that once my design was shortlisted I was able to produce a mini Knight, giving myself a much better idea of the outcome. Good news kept coming once that I heard that a couple of Sponsors were interested in my Knight design, and in the end it was snapped up by Game Engineering.

My mini Knight design: ‘Knight of the Skies’

From the get-go I had a lot of media outlets and students wanting information about my design and the Knight’s Trail, and since having the big statue arrive in January, it was pretty much all I talked about and worked on until he was complete! It was great working this time around, knowing other artists that were involved and being more familiar with the whole process. It was also a relief having longer and fewer statues to work on, since my design was very detailed. Judging by the feedback, before the Trail has even begun, I think the Knights will be even more successful than the Barons!

Here are some detail/progress montages that I’ve assembled:

My design features a Lancaster Bomber flying over Lincoln Cathedral at sunset, following the sky around to the other side, passing a Wellington Bomber, to a flight crew safely back from a mission. Poppies surround the entire base and the Bomber Command Motto ‘strike hard, strike sure’ is on the shield. The Knight’s sword pays homage to the Memorial Spire up on Canwick Hill, and is even covered in the same Corten steel, thanks to Game Engineering. The position also nicely illustrates that the height of the spire mirrors the wingspan of a Lancaster Bomber.

The Knight figure, himself is dressed in full aviation gear including goggles and a helmet.  He also sports a flying Jacket with a real sheepskin collar. In an extra-special tribute, the back of his jacket is signed by the Last British Dambuster himself, George ‘Johnny’ Johnson, just under a fuller illustration of the International Bomber Command Memorial Spire.

Johnny signing the Knight

Since the Knight of the Skies was varnished and sent back to Lincoln BIG, ready for the press release event, he’s got his own twitter page: Knight of the Skies

He was also chosen to represent the Lincoln Knight’s trail at a Tourism event at the NEC in Birmingham. Here he is representing with Marcus from RAFBBMF:

He returned safely back to Lincoln in time for the Press Release event at the Showroom in Lincoln, where I finally got to see all of the other designs, including a special 36th Knight. He was unveiled celebrating the recent success of Lincoln City F.C.

It was a fantastic evening, getting to interact with all of the other Artists and Sponsors as well as seeing all the designs together. I did a few more interviews and started planning the Knight of the Skies Tour and Merchandise before he goes in the Castle Square by the Tourist Infirmation Centre for the Trail in May!

Posing with the Knight at the Launch event

That’s all that I have so far on The Knight’s Trail. For more information, check out their website Knightstrail.com

And be sure to follow the Knights Trail this summer, and tag @LincKnightSkies on Twitter using the hashtag #LincolnKnights. I’ll be including highlights in this blog.

Thanks for reading!x