Saturday, May 9, 2009

Young King Kelson




Kelson, the youthful King, is the major character in a number of series of Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz. His father, King Brion, was bumped off by a wicked conspiracy early in the story, and Kelson inherited the throne of the kingdom of Gwynedd when he was only fourteen. He has to learn to rule and grow up at the same time, helped by his stalwart advisors and plotted against by the evil Deryni conspirators and corrupt churchmen. I depict him here as a royal teenager, with some Norman-style shields in the background. I went through a lot of medieval references and periods before deciding that the Kelson story took place later than the Norman era; I now set it in about 1300.
This character portrait is ink and watercolor on paper, 5" x 7", and was done in spring 1982.

1 comment:

Tristan Alexander said...

Another nice SCA-ish picture.