Research tool box -- Google Images

This week I started the research and design for one of the pieces I am doing as supporting items for my Expert panel.  Because it is a surprise item, I can't talk much about the specific item, so I thought I'd say a few things about research. Today I'll talk about using Google Images.

For the project in question, I was given certain parameters (the embroidered item must represent "X").  Let's say "X" is an acorn (it's not, but let's pretend... oh, I see how this is going to go, I'm going to wind up with *two* projects).

Next, I want to have the project have a look appropriate to the person's persona time and place.  Mine is 12th Century and since the acorn is part of my Household badge, we'll use 12th Century.  Next I went to Google Images and typed "12th Century acorn."  Lots of hits.  Most of them not actually on point.  Many items not actually 12th Century, many not actually showing an acorn, but a few good hits.  Many of those good hits are on Pinterest these days.  That's ok as long as you follow the links and get to actual content.  Pinterest is both a boon and a bane to researching.  I happened to find this link to a file on Wikicommons.  I'll be filing that away for future research, though it may be a bit busy for my current design thoughts.  It does purport to be 12th Century, though, and certainly depicts acorns, so it's worth remembering for more info.

For the actual project, I did find a Pinterest link to a manuscript from the correct century with an illustration of the element(s) desired, and I'm pretty happy with it.  I was having trouble getting more information -- several Pinterest boards linked to the same broken link so I wasn't finding the actual source of the item.  That's when I used Google Image search again.  Now, I use a Windows machine, and I'm afraid I don't know how to do this on anything running a different OS, but I"m sure there's a way:  I right clicked on the image and selected "Search Google for this Image."  Another way is to save the image to your computer then, in Google Images click on the camera icon to search by image and upload it,  Using this, I found a link to a digitized version of the book the image came from.  With this I had the documentation I was looking for to be able to cite the source of the image.

Searching on Google Images can be a powerful tool.  Sometimes it takes a few tries to get some useful images out of the search (try "Medieval" or "Renaissance" instead of the century, for instance), and even the good hits will take some more research to determine if the image is what you're looking for, but it's a good jumping off point.  Keep in mind that it is a *start* but far from a *finish* for good research and documentation.  Another problem, of course is the rabbit hole.  For instance in the example above -- created just for doing this post, I have found an image that just yells at me to have something done with, both embroidery and the brain space going "look at that hood."

Now, I'm off to look at some more possibly 12th century acorns... I do have a couple other supporting projects to design.