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A red dragon sprawls across a diagonally sweeping American flag, above Welsh and English choir text.

400 × 397 px · JPEG · The full frame
Sain (Recordiau) Cyf. · CC BY-SA 3.0

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MUSIC ARTWORK / SAIN

O Gymru I America / Songs Of Wales And The Usa

Pendyrus Mael Choir

Album artwork for Pendyrus Mael Choir, provided through the SAIN Records collection on Wikimedia Commons.

A CLOSER LOOK / 01

Inside the image.

A square illustrated cover is dominated by a large red dragon, shown in profile facing left. Its long, angular head and open, dark mouth stretch across the upper centre; a black eye sits beneath a heavy brow, and curved red forms suggest its neck and body continuing down the right side. Thick black outlines and scratchy dark marks define the creature. It overlaps a stylised United States flag that fills much of the background: white stars pattern a deep navy field in the upper left, while broad red and pale stripes sweep diagonally from the left edge towards the lower right. A dark band across the bottom carries the title. Near the lower left, a smaller dark, curled shape with pointed forms is partly silhouetted against the stripes; its precise subject is unclear. The image is tightly cropped, with no separate border or margin. Strong red, navy, black, cream and orange create sharp contrast. The artwork has a graphic, hand-drawn appearance, with uneven lines and visible hatched strokes rather than photographic detail.

Large condensed uppercase lettering runs along the top edge, reading “THE PENDYRUS MALE CHOIR”; it is red with a pale outline or shadow and sits against a light background. Beneath the dragon, two lines of smaller red Welsh text are centred over the dark lower area: “Côr Meibion Pendyrus yn canu caneuon o” and “Gymru a Taleithiau Unedig America”. Along the bottom, “SONGS OF WALES and the USA” appears in large orange lettering, with “and the” in smaller lowercase type between the larger uppercase words.

ASSOCIATIONS & IMPRESSIONS / 02

What the image evokes.

The dragon’s fierce profile and the flag’s sweeping bands make the image feel like a meeting staged in bold emblematic shorthand. The creature seems to surge out of the stripes, its hooked snout and dark eye giving the central red mass an alert, almost confrontational presence. Yet the flag is not a static backdrop: its diagonal movement lends the whole cover a sense of forward motion, as though the two motifs were caught in a gust.

The limited palette and emphatic outlines recall hand-painted poster art and vintage printed graphics, though the rough strokes keep the image from feeling too polished. The result balances pageantry with a slightly unruly, folkloric energy. The small dark form at lower left adds a knot of shadow and ambiguity beneath the dominant dragon, while the orderly headline and title anchor the more tumultuous illustration. The image can read as celebratory and assertive, but its heavy blacks and narrowed dragon eye give that celebration a dramatic edge.

Associations are subjective readings, rather than documented influences or statements of the artist’s intention.

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Lettering & observation notes
  • THE PENDYRUS MALE CHOIR — Across the top edge
  • Côr Meibion Pendyrus yn canu caneuon o — Lower centre, first line
  • Gymru a Taleithiau Unedig America — Lower centre, second line
  • SONGS OF WALES and the USA — Along the bottom
BACK TO THE SOURCE / 03

Artwork sources & licence.

CC BY-SA 3.0 ↗

Credit the author and source, link to the licence and indicate any changes. Share adaptations under compatible terms. Read the full licence for details.

Source year
2000
Source author field
Sain (Records) Ltd
Attribution
Sain (Recordiau) Cyf.
Collection
SAIN / Wikimedia Commons
Catalogue number
SAIN SCD 8024
Source
Wikimedia Commons file page ↗
Permission evidence
Public VRT notice: 2017050910011681
Source checked
20 October 2026

Year as recorded on the source file page; it may not represent the work’s first release. File unchanged; browser preview scaled proportionally.