War in the Supermarket

School will be over for me in a few days, so it's time to start thinking about the next print.  Plus, we had scheduled the next critique group for tonight  and I do like having something to talk about.  A new saint or supermarket print is the typical plan in a case like this.  As for an idea, back in March I witnessed and blogged about an incident where I do my Sunday morning shopping, one employee yelling at another, a dispute regarding language (English vs French).  With these prints it is my policy to not ask, but just note what I observe and figure out later how it's art.  At the time I thought about a language class being set up in produce (where this went down), but it's not that exciting a story.  However this weekend I looked at the original incident again, but this time some other things I had been reading up on recently were in my brain and I thought of another possibility.  What if this was more about an actual battle?  The French and English mixed it up many times over the last thousand years, but the most famous single battle was Hastings in 1066, a date we high school students were instructed was the most important date to remember in all of history.  (Me, neither English nor French, I can think of other more significant dates in western history.)  It does come with a major artwork, the Bayeux Tapestry, a 300 foot long embroidery that tells the whole story with a mixture of images and text, perhaps history's first comic book.  Could be an interesting angle.

So this morning I needed to shop anyway, and brought something small I could sketch in.  Sketched a few views of the area where the original argument had occurred.  Got up to the Studio around 5:00, a very busy time on Monday nights in general, especially in play season.  I eventually got to the point of the above sketch.  The giant umbrella is in that part of the store, but also hides a dull section of ceiling.  Threw in some Latin text, found all through the original tapestry.  In this early version, since the yelling employee put himself on that side, a British flag hangs on the u-boat cart.  (not authentic to the period, but there were no national flags then, so something a 21st century viewer would understand will do)  My thinking is that the employees I put into the composition will be dressed in normal work uniforms, but will have the contorted poses common the the characters in the tapestry.  Don't know yet if I'll even be doing this as a print, but at least I had something for tonight's group.