Beowulf Page 1

First big test of the first page.

Paper: Arches Hot Press Watercolor
Layout: modern mechanical pencil
Calligraphy: Quill pen & Sumi Ink
I used the following pigments: Carbon Black, Minium (Red Lead), Red Ochre,Orpiment, Lead White, Vermillion, Griffin Dye Work’s Peacock Blue (their replacement for Azurite) and Synthetic Ultramarine (same chemical makeup as lapis lazuli). For my green I used a mix of Peacock Blue and Orpiment that’s simular to vergaut (indigotin and orpiment)


Calligraphy done, Illuminated cap painted, now for the rest of it.

Colors going down in solid blocks of color.  Using my handmade brushes for this.

Large areas have been painted with the base color, I added the details with a sharpened quill pen using either vermillion, ultramarine, or carbon black paint.

 Details done.  Ready for white work. Again using a quill to apply the paint.

Using bread like Cenni suggests for erasing.

Finished page, surrounded by supplies.

Isaac

Quills, Brushes, and what's next

I've had chance to play with the quills and brushes I have made lately on a page from my Beowulf project.  Both the quills and the brushes work ok.  I need to keep practicing at making them. I can currently cut a quill small enough to do the lettering I want, but I'm not getting the hair lines and sharp corners that I get with the metal nibs.I think some of the issue is with the curing of the quills.  I'll do more cleaning of the barrels before I do the curing and see if that helps.  The latest Minever brush works really well compared to the badger brushes I've made so far.  The hogs hair also works pretty good as long as the hairs stay together.  I'm planning on attempting to make a few more badger and hogs hair brushes and I'll need to order some more minever before I can make more of those.

The page I'm working on for my Beowulf project is coming along nicely. I'm using my mixed pigments, quill pens, handmade brushes, Arches Hot press Watercolor paper, and sumi ink.  Not all the materials are period in nature yet, but it's getting much closer and I can gauge how the quills and brushes preform as I'm use to using modern versions of the tools with the mixed pigments on the Arches paper.

Next special project I think will be making ink.  I have the materials to make a batch of oak gall ink, just need to plan the day to do it.

Isaac

More Calligraphy

Started working on the next round of champion scrolls this past weekend.  The gothic hand is looking pretty good now.  I also did a few lines for the Beowulf project on some test paper.  I wanted to get more done, but after everything this weekend, my hand just wasn't up for to much writing.

Isaac

Calligraphy

Been working on Calligraphy lately.  I'm currently working on page 5 of my Beowulf project.  I'm currently somewhere around line 160 of the story.

Also, I got asked to do some Gothic calligraphy for two champion scrolls for Wiesenfeuer's Baronial event that's coming up soon.  The design and painting of the pieces have been done by other members of FireStorm Ink, a local Scribal Arts guild.  I used a dip pen with a Brause nib.  The black ink is sumi and the red is Talon gouache.

Isaac

Beowulf Project Update

I currently have all of the illuminations drawn, most of them finalized and inked.  I'm now working through doing the calligraphy and seeing how all of the text and illuminations will lay out on each of the pages.

The line height is about 7 mm tall, and there's 35 lines per page, which is close to the fairly regular 38 lines per page of the Cotton Claudius B.iv.

Isaac

Sketches

I've completed the design sketches and have done some practice calligraphy for the County Scroll I'm working on.  I'm planning on a few more practice runs at the calligraphy before I break out the good paper and start on the final piece.

I've also completed all 37 sketches for the illuminations for my Beowulf project.  There are two illuminations that I'm going to go back and redo as I'm not happy with they way they currently look.

Isaac

Progress & a Commission

I've made some good progress on the Beowulf Project illuminations. I now have 26 drawn out and another still in the layout stages.

Last week I was asked if I was interested in doing a County award "scroll" with a deadline of mid March. I agreed after talking a little bit more to the person that was playing intermediary. I was given the following to go by, the Recipient like lions, armor, fighting and viking stuff.

So, after stewing on those ingredients, I settled on a style and layout. The Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Claudius B.iv is what I'll be basing my drawings and lettering off of. Cotton Claudius B.iv has some really great fighting depictions as well as Kings ruling, a favorite for this award scroll from what I found by looking at a few online galleys of other artists work.

My layout is going to be two columns that each represents a page. I'm going to be leaving plenty of space between each column so when the art is framed it can have two picture windows and really give the illusion of being two pages. I'm going to be doing two illuminated scenes per "page". The first page will have the Recipient fighting in a tourney and then ruling in a court type fashion. The second page will feature a six figure melee and the Recipient receiving the title of Earl.

I currently have all four scenes drawn out on drawing paper, initial letters drawn to their full size, and the text typed out for easy reference when I go to practice the calligraphy.  I hope to have everything drawn and calliged by the end of the month.

Isaac

Busy December, Beowulf Outline

December has been one busy month.  I did find time to finish going through Beowulf picking out scenes that I want to illuminate.  I have 37 picked out and I'm currently drawing on number 19.  My plan is once I have all the scenes drawn out I'll start placing them on mock up pages with text to see if I need to add in any extras and just what it's going to start looking like.

Isaac

Back to Beowulf Project.

Playing with drawing and painting in the style of Cotton Claudius B.iv again. I haven't run across swords or helmets painted in the manuscript, as where I have found them, they are on unfinished pages and are just inked. Skin tone is also up in the air. Where I have found it is in the dealing with Adam & Eve and their being cast out, and then they are painted white.

Isaac

Construction: Stage 1...

The Hexateuch since it was never really finished shows off the various steps of it's construction beautifully. Ruling off page into different sections is the first step.  This page will need a box for illumination some where in the center and two areas of text, one on the top of the illumination the other below it.

The artists of the Hexateuch used a dry point method for doing their layout and general composition. I'll be using a mechanical pencil to do mine on the water color paper for my first attempt.

After everything is lined out, the Old English calligraphy is added.  The page below contains lines 210 to 234 of Beowulf. They talk about Beowulf's journey and the Watchman that first meets him at the shore.

Next I'll add the illuminated scene.

The scene contains elements from several different folios in the Hexateuch all drawn together to illustrate what's going on.  The ship is found on folio 14v & 14r, the tower is on folio 22r, the horse rider can be found on folio 47r, the armor to help separate Beowulf is the kings armor from folio 24v, and the group around Beowulf is taken from members of the army found on folio 25v.

Isaac

The facsimile of the Old English Hexateuch that I'm using for the style of my Beowulf project is on a CD that came with the book,  The Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Cotton MS. Claudius B.iv: The Frontier of Seeing and Reading in Anglo-Saxon England, by Benjamin C. Withers.

For the text of Beowulf in Old English I'm using  Beowulf – Bilingual Edition, by Seamus Heaney.

Basic information on the Hexateuch:
11^th Century Anglo-Saxon
330 x 220 mm  (12.99 x 8.66 in)
38 lines of text per folio
 ~ 3 mm line height

The editors of the 1974 print facsimile of the Hexateuch, C.R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes, indentified five stages of completion of the illustrations in the manuscript.Withers describes these various stages and identifies groupings in his book on pages 26 and 27.  They are as follows:

Stage 1: The artist sketched the outlines of his composition in dry pointing (folio 149v - 159v)
Stage 2: The artist painted solid blocks of color as needed on draperies, animals, architecture, and frames (folio 143r-149r)
Stage 3: The artist outlined heads, arms, bodies, swords, frames, etc using red ink (folio 101-127v)
Stage 4: The artist adds details to the face such as eyes, nose, and mouth (folio 78-100v)
Stage 5: The artist completes the drapery, defining folds and contours. (folios 2r - 76v)

For Grendel, I'm planning on using a humanoid monster that's found in LIBER VITÆ: the Register and Martyrology of Newminster and Hyde Abbey, Winchester, written about 1016-1020. The image below can be found here.

LIBER VITÆ is part of the British Library's Catalog of Illuminated Manuscripts and can be found here.

Isaac

Current Project: Beowulf

My current scribal type project is my longest project to date.  The idea light bulb went off back in April of 2009 and I've been progressing little by little on the project since then.  So far it's research, research, research, practice at calligraphy, and a little bit of sketching.  I'm using the Old English Hexateuch, Cotton MS. Claudius B.iv as an example to work up at least a few pages of lines from Beowulf.

Wikipedia Article on the Hexateuch found here

Isaac