TALENTED art students got creative during the lockdown by making copies of Tudor ruffs - from materials as diverse as pizza.

First-year students at Glasgow School of Art were set a project inspired by a historic portrait of Elizabeth I, known as the Armada Portrait.

The painting, dating from 1588, showed the red-haired queen sitting on a throne with warships in the background and celebrated the defeat of a Spanish invasion.

For centuries it belonged to descendants of Sir Francis Drake but now it belongs to Royal Museums Greenwich.

During the lockdown, students enrolled in Silversmithing and Jewellery courses were asked to come up with ways of replicating the monarch's ruff - using whatever materials they had to hand.

One student even got her dad to pose holding a bottle of Corona beer.

Dedicated Eva Gabor baked a pizza especially to use for the project.

Eva said: “My idea was to make something that represents our current situation.

“Being isolated cleaning and baking became a ritual for me.

"I thought of making a pizza as a ruff would be funny, but with staging the image I was also trying to show sorrow and loneliness too.”

Emily McGeary, 19, got her dad, John, 50, involved and put some make up on him for a photoshoot where he posed with a bottle of Corona at their home in the East End.

Glasgow Times:

She said: "Much like the great plague of the early 17th Century, covid-19 has affected our nation in a way we could not have imagined.

"We have to be grateful for what we have now and my dad loves his Corona. And he likes a good dress up session.

“I used whatever I could find around the house that gave me the effect I was looking for, such as old velvet material from a chair that we had previously upholstered and an old lampshade fitting.

"After fitting it on my dad, I added some socks to the ruff to give it a stuffed look along with some bubble wrap to give the traditional shape around the edge.”

And Saipranathi Sreeram, 19, created a ruff using university prospectuses and thin copper sheets, inspired by honey bees.

Saipranathi said: “Looking at the Armada Portrait, I noticed that the Queen was portrayed holding the entire globe in her hand, to maybe display her worth and prowess as a queen.

Glasgow Times:

“Honeybee hives are an excellent metaphor in regards to the Queen and her influences on a nation, with the Queen being referred to as the 'mother' and the Queen Bee, quite literally being the mother of the bees in the hive.

"So, I decided to play with these connections to inspire the design of the ruff."

Claire Frith, 19, used stuff which was being thrown out in her home in Bishopton to make the ruff - including packing foam and cardboard.

She said: "The pearl adornments and the traditional white material on the inside layer of my ruff were used to keep the moonlike shape and colour, this symbolised Diana the goddess of the moon.”

Glasgow Times:

“Tasked with using materials that surround us to create our ruff.

"I tried to use things that were being thrown out; leaves, protective packaging foam, cardboard, staples, thread.”