Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part III

The book board were another challenge.  My first attempt I only dug channels in the inside for the supports to go; this time I drilled and chiseled out channels going through the boards to lace the supports through the boards.

Channels cut through the book boards.

Supports laced to the book boards and attached.

 It was touch to get the draw knife started when trimming the pages.  I see why the draw knife was eventually dropped for a book binders plow. 

Pages trimmed to the boards.

End bands sewn in

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part II

The binding process made me nerviness.  We had spent so many hours working on all of those sheets and now I had to punch holes in them and cut them to shape eventually.  While I did the binding, Nic work on the brass clasps.

Punching holes in the gatherings was the point I was at my most nerviness. After that, it was a lot easier to do what I had to, to turn the gatherings into a book.

Punching holes in the gatherings.

Sewing frame all set up.

Sewing the first gathering on.

 I did manage to stab the tips of a few fingers while doing the sewing, drawing only a little blood each time, so bleeding on this project was kept to a real minimum.

All finished.

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book: Part I

Owen's Chivalric Quest Book has been completed and presented, so I'll be getting into it's creation and process.

You can find a documentation write up, here.

Once all the calligraphy was finished, we started drawing the illumination part of the project.  We did a page with miniatures at the start of each section, and every page of calligraphy received at least a boarder.  In total there are 170 pages that were drawn on and painted.

Adding Drawings.

 We mixed our own paints, besides for the gold.  It would have saved some time and fussiness if we had gone with store bought paint for all of our colors.  We went through two to three batches of paint for the major colors.

Nic mixing pigments to paint.

We painted the base colors on each page.  If I had the space I would paint one side of every sheet in a gathering at a time.  By the end of the project, we had figured out how to assembly line the illumination.

base painted areas

Drawing the black lines around the painted areas made it look really dark.  We ended up having to remind ourselves many times that the white work would make it look better.

outlined in black

 Adding the white work brought everything together.  This the the stage we started getting excited about how things were turning out.

Finished sheet.

Inking sketch and leafing

I've finished inking the sketch on the quote project. I've started working on the gold leafing.

Inking more or less done on one side.

Close up of the ink.

Inking is finished.

Gold leaf started.

The flash illuminates the gold leaf.

My verdigris experiment continues, no noticeable changes have been happening, so no bad, blurry pictures of the jars.

Construction Zone

The hobby room has been packed up for over a month now waiting for the construction of cabinets, shelves, and worktables.  We did get everything for the cabinets and shelves installed the other weekend, they just need to be trimmed out and then painted.  The work tables have all their pieces cut and are ready for assembly as soon as we can put things away in the cabinets and shelves as everything is piled where the work tables will be going.  We're hoping that by the end of December, everything will be done and we'll have our hobby room back, better then ever, and our library open for use.

My Son, helping to install the cabinets.

Six in one Week

Last minute, well technically a three week deadline, champion certificates.  To accommodate painters I worked to get all six ready for painting in a weeks time.  I based all six off the same manuscript, Lateinischer Psalter aus England - BSB Clm 835, which can be found HERE and used the same general layout.  I did alternate the inside/outside boarders so it looks more like a series of pages from a book.  We also did a on-site calligraphy free text as it didn't look like any of the calligraphers would be attending the event.  So far they have seemed to be a hit with the painters and I hope to get some finished pictures of the pieces before they are handed out.

New(old) Project, Verdigris, & Garlic Juice

I started over on a quote project for a friend that I was asked to start working on last year.  I wasn't happy with how it was turning out at the time, something was off and I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.  Then came my son and he's kept me very busy, but I've gotten back to the quote project.  I was able to put my finger on the problem pretty quickly this time around, it was the proportions, they were way off.  Back to the drawing board and so far this time around it's turning out really well.

The quote  will be the one from the movie Kingdom of Heaven and it's the one about A King may move a man...  The completed size will be 16 x 20 and I'm doing a "2" page layout.  The "first" page is 6 of the 7 virtues, and the "second" page will be at least a large illuminated initial and quote.

Verdigris just past week 9.

Garlic Juice, a mordant for flat gilding.  "It's easy, just go to a health food store, and they should have it." Well after going to 5 different health food stores in the area, it looks everyone's gone to a garlic extract or a mix that's primary not garlic juice and has no stickiness to it.  So I decided to make my own.  I peeled a bulb of garlic and blended it into a paste.  I took the paste and worked it through a strainer to extract the juice.  So now, I have about 5 ml of garlic juice ready for use.

Teaching Classes

Started a class series about how a medieval manuscript page was made with a friend of mine helping to teach. The first class was a lecture class that went over each step, that went really well, and we'll be doing a different step hands on as the months go by.  Right now we're planning on covering Pricking & Ruling, Quill Cutting & Calligraphy, Gold Leaf, Painting in Layers, and Miniatures & Grotesques.

Isaac

Quill Pens & Leather Penner

I was part of a small group that sat down and did some feather curing and cutting them into pens.  The sand method of curing was agreed up for the first try and it turned out successful.  We didn't burn or blister any of the feathers.  When it came time to do the cutting, we only lost a few feathers to cracking under our unskilled hands, but each of us turned out three quills that we thought would have a chance to write.  And, write they did.  At first the letters were heavy with ink, not really a blob, but readable, and they took a long while to dry.  We then did some more trimming to the quills and they wrote even better.  Much more like a typical modern dip pen that were use to.  It was nice to have such good success after a few hours of work.  Time to order more feather to practice on and I would love to get a more period looking pen knife.

I've also started work on a leather penner.  A penner is a pen case that is attached to an ink pot.   The image of a tailor below has a penner hanging on his belt. 

  The penner is pretty common from the 14th century onwards. I have read that Kungliga Bibliotek, ms. A. 144, folio 34, in Stockholm, from the 12th century, shows small boxes hanging from the belt on a group of small figures, but I haven't seen the manuscript page for myself.

I finished the inside layer of leather last night.  I'm using a wooden block that's 1" x 2" x 10" as a form.  The outside layer of leather, I plan on doing some sort of carving decoration, just not sure what yet.  The cords that I plan on using I made with a Lucet.  The ink pot is going to be one of the ones I purchased from Griffin Dye Works.

Isaac

Comission: Finished

The County Scroll received the signatures last night.  I'm planning on one more go over to check for anything that needs to be fixed and then it'll be wrapped up and prepared for shipping.  It's been a fun project and images of it will be posted in April.  Gotta keep the surprise a secrete.

Other than that, I've started a small piece of an illuminated scene.  It's on pergamenata, a material that's made to simulate the look and feel of traditional parchment/vellum.  It mimics parchment/vellum very well, down to the buckling if it gets to wet and it's made of plant material.  I'm also using my ground pigments on it.  I'll get pictures of that up soon.

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