Books

I've added three new books to my collection on manuscript/illumination studies.  They are:

The Art of All Colours, Mediaeval Recipe Books for Painters and Illuminators by Mark Clarke
The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding by J.A. Szirmai
Mediaeval Painters' Materials and Techniques, The Montpellier Liber diversarum arcium by Mark Clarke

I've finished reading the Art of All Colours and while most of the book is filled with information on where to find or what books contain information about medieval painting it does have a very informational introduction. Not a book for everyone, but with it's lists of manuscripts it will open new areas to research into for more information.

I've also started reading the other two.  So far the Bookbinding book, is very interesting and I love all the images.  It makes me want to hurry up and try to do some binding.

Painters' Materials and Techniques so far has been a fascinating look at how the information was transported and adapted into the LDA (Liber diversarum arcium). The rest of the book looks just as good as the start. After the Formation of the LDA, comes an overview of painting, then the translation, a section on commentary and discussion, glossary, the latin text, and finally the appendixes.

Isaac

Making a Medieval Brush

In addition to pondering out what Cenni was trying to convay in his description on how to make a brush, I asked Randy Asplund, aka Master Sir RanthulR of the Middle Kingdom, if he had any suggestions on other sources or tips for making brushes.  He was kind enough to supply a book suggestions as well as some tips. As, well as making the comment to practice.

The book was Brushes, A Handbook for Artists and Artisans, By Jacques Turner.  I managed to find a used copy in really good condition for not to much, so I picked it up.  The pictures and descriptions even tho they are of modern brushes really did help understand what Cenni was talking about.

With this new understanding I put together the following steps for making a brush.  It's still a bit of a mishmash as I've now made two badger hair brushes by these steps and those brushes need to be tested for results.

The steps are as follows:

1. Cut and clean quills. These barrels need to be a good length as they will be the ferrules that hold the tuft and handle together.
    
2. Carve your stick down to a tight fit into the quill barrels. The softened quill barrel will stretch some and shrink when dry and that will help lock the ferrule to the handle.  Be sure to carve a small ring notch near where the end of the quill barrel will be. If you plan to seal and finish your handle, you should do this before assembly. Sealing will help prolong the life of the brush by protecting the wood from liquids.
    
3. Soak the quill barrels until soft. You want the water to be a little warm.
    
4. Take your animal hair and wash and dry it to clean it. Combing or brushing it will help to clean it also.
   Cut the hair off the tail/pelt. Keep the tips of the hair all going the same way.  Comb out the hairs to help remove any small particles or short hairs.  Sort brushed hair into lengths.
    
5. Take hairs and make a bundle, be sure to line up the tips. Natural hair has three parts to it, the points or tips, the body, and the root.
    
6. Wet down the bundle and then press and squeeze the hairs to help in shaping.
    
7. Use thread or waxed silk to tie the bundles. Tie the bundles in two spots near the end. If you are making a bigger brush you can use many smaller bundles to make up a larger one.
    
8. You can manipulate the tuft shape a bit after it’s been tied off. And, trim the root end, if some of the hairs were longer than others.
    
9. Take the softened quill from the water and insert the tuft end first.  Adjust the length to desired size of brush. Modernly for quill ferrules, a small brass wire is used to compress the quill around the tuft, usually between the two ties. For metal ferrules, glue is used to secure the tuft.
    
10. Insert the prepared handle into the softened quill.  Be sure to tightly tie thread or silk about the quill where the ring notch is carved.  This will help the quill grip the handle once the quill dries. Modernly, brass wire is used to secure the quill to the notch.
     
11. Put aside and allow the quill to dry.

The badger hair I used didn't want to form a nice point after I got the brush assembled, so I took a diluted gum arabic solution and dipped the hairs into it, and then shaped the hairs. Over all, the making of the brushes went really smoothly besides lining up all the hairs for the tuft. I see where practice and experience plays a large roll here.

Isaac

New Play Piece & Pigment Research

The county scroll has been passed off for mailing.  I've done another small quick piece in the style of the Old English Hexateuch, Cotton Claudius B.iv.  The size is 5.25" x 7.75".

It's done on Pergamenata (a modern vegetable based Velum that's acid free), using the following Pigments - Carbon Black, Terra Vert,Verona Terra Green, Nickle Titanium Yellow, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cobalt Blue Pale, Ultramarine Violet Medium, Ultramarine Blue, Ultramarine Pink, Red Lead, & Buff Titanium.  Not all of those pigments are correct for the style and some of the pigments are modern synthetics or titanium instead of lead replacements.

I've also been doing a lot of research into pigments lately, not only about origins or how to make it, but also the when and where for the colors.  I've recently reread Thompson's The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting and Thompson's translation of Cennino d'Andrea Cennini's "Il Libro dell' Arte" better known as the Craftsman's Handbook.  

I've also been haunting www.jstor.org for articles.  After some research I found out that my wife's OU facility access includes library access and JSTOR is included.  Needless to say, I've been downloading read all sorts of articles on medieval pigments and other sources to do further research into.  From the JSTOR articles I've been introduced to two more period source books, Mappe Clavicula and De diversis artbus (On Diverse Arts).  JSTOR has the article where the Mappe Clavicula was translated and published.  It was a very interesting read, with a lot of recipes for making gold go further or making imitation gold colors. And, it's from around the year 800 AD.

A copy of Hawthorne's and Smith's translaction of Theophilus's On Diverse Arts, should be in midweek.  I'm really looking forward to this book as it's described as the earliest (12th century) treatise on arts written by practicing artist. Pigments, glass blowing, stained glass, gold and silver work, more. And, it's supposed to include 34 illustrations.  That's a lot earlier then Cennini's Handbook that's from the 15th century and after the compilation of recipes that is Mappe Clavicula.

Isaac

County Scroll & Research

The County Scroll is pretty much finished.  All that's left is to give it a good look over after not working on it for several days and get signatures for it.  I think it turned out really well and pictures of it will be posted later as I'm not sure how much of a surprise it's supposed to be.

Besides books on period clothing/weaving/spinning/ect that I've been reading to help my Wife research garb or medieval clothing, I've also started reading The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Book, From the Twelfth to Early Sixteenth Century by Albert Derolez.  So far it's a really good read.  I have had to look up a few terms that I wasn't familiar with.  I'm about half way through with the book so far and looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Isaac

A Book about the Christina Psalter...

I recently picked up a book, for my ever growing library, on the Christina Psalter written by Dr. Marina Vidas, an Adjunct Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Copenhagen.  The Christina Psalter (GKS 1606, 4°, The Royal Library, Copenhagen) is a thirteenth-century Parisian manuscript and the book by Dr. Vidas covers the history of the Psalter, its liturgical and other functions, missing illuminations and text, the stylistic and iconographic similarities between the Psalter and other books from the period.

So far it's been an interesting and enjoyable read. The book does contain a few color images of the Psalter as well as some grayscale ones of other manuscripts that Dr. Vidas also talks about.

Images of the Christina Psalter can be found online here.

Isaac

Anglo-Saxon Culture Interest

With all the time I've been spending looking at the manuscripts I've gotten interested in the rest of the Anglo-Saxon culture.  To further this I've picked up two books, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England Revised and enlarged edition by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Anglo-saxon Food and Drink by Ann Hagen.

Both have turn out to be really nice reads.  Both authors managed to give a lot of information is nice ways to the point I didn't feel like I was reading a typical history book.

Dress in Anglo-Saxon England references many of the manuscripts I've been looking at while it tries to put together the picture of how the Anglo-Saxons' dressed.  She mentions several times about items that are alluded to in the illuminations, such as decorative trim on sleeves, as well as objects that do show up, such as cloak pin, and how minor changes in things such as hair style, beard, shoes, clothes can help distinguish who is involved in the scene, older men tend to have beards, a halo and lack of shoes for an angel.

The History of English Handwriting book did prove to be a short read.  I really didn't get "oh that's cool" moments from it, but I'll let it sit awhile and read it again.

I have been working on a few leather working projects.  My wife now has a belt for her garb and I've been working putting together a ring frame pouch. The Dress in Anglo-Saxon England talks about rings found in graves are now thought to be pouch rings instead of suspension rings or bracelets.  My internet searching didn't turn up much of anything on the subject, so I'm currently going with a general design for the pouch that's seen in the Manesse Codex and a few latter manuscripts. 

Isaac

Books for Research

Picked up copies of "The History of English Handwriting AD 700 - 1400" by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson and "Parker Chronicle and Laws Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 173" from the Early English Text Society Original Series.

The History of English Handwriting is taken from an off print of the original article which was first delivered in 1899 to the Bibliographical Society and then published in the Society's Transactions the following year.  Tinger of the Stripe, the publishing company to do this version has added additional illustrations.  Over all this should be a short interesting read.

Having a hard copy of the Parker Chronicle is nice, as the images I had just didn't have the resolution to get a good look at the calligraphy.  The different hands in the Parker Chronicle is very similar to the other Anglo-Saxon/Old English hands I found in other manuscripts.  The differences are in little flourishes.

For my History project, I think I'm going to be combining most of the flourishes I like the best from the different Anglo-Saxon calligraphy.  I've done a test run using a cartage pen and the hand that's used on the Beowulf manuscript.  Over all, it went rather well, with only a few mistakes.  I'll be making some changes to my plan that will help create a better finished project.

The Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts has been a wonderful source for having a lot of good links to various Old English Manuscripts. Old English List

Isaac

Books, Books, Books

I haven't done to much work on my calligraphy or illumination lately. I've been doing more reading.

I went ahead and picked up a cartridge pen made by Manuscript so I can do some practice calligraphy at work during lunch breaks at work. The dip pens were just to much trouble to try and get set up, used, and then cleaned up in the little free bits of free time.

For my birthday, I received some money, so I made an Amazon order for some more books.  I picked up the following: Beowulf: Facsimile of British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A xv, with a transliteration (Early English Text Society Original Series), Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications), The Macclesfield Psalter, Italian Illuminated Manuscripts in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Trust Publications: J. Paul Getty Museum), The Gilded Page: The History and Technique of Manuscript Gilding plus a few other non C&I related books.

The Beowulf book is going to be great for my Beowulf project when I get back to it.

The Macclesfield Psalter is two parts, the first is on the Psalter, studies into it's making, the content it shows, ect and the 2nd part is of the facsimile of the Psalter's pages.  I can't wait to dive into this book.  I think it's going to make a really great source of inspiration.

I've been reading The Gilded Page: The History and Technique of Manuscript Gilding and so far it's really good.  While I've read some of the author's sources like The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting, and The Craftsman's Handbook: the Italian "Il Libro dell' Arte" it's been years.  The recipes the author has in the book go from the very period to an easy modern recipe using white glue as it's main ingredient to make gesso.  I'm now thinking I'll have to invest in some gold leaf and other supplies to try out the new knowledge.

Isaac