New Handouts/Documentation

Finished up the documentation about my 2013 Verdigris project.  It's written in two parts, one about growing the pigment and the other taking that pigment and turning it into paint.  I did a page of test swatches and then an initial from the Book of Kells to show off the verdigris to go along with the swatch page.  I'm planning on showing the project this weekend at a local event.

I also have finished up a handout on the Medieval treatises I have found with some basic information on each treatise and where I found it, ie JSTOR, Inter-library loan, ebook, ect.

Medieval Treatises -  Information on where I've found the medieval treatises I currently use for information.

Documentation from my 2013 Verdigris Experiment:
Making Verdigris Pigment
Making Verdigris Paint

Verdigris

Six months have past and it is now time to remove the copper tubes now coated in verdigris.  I used six months as the Liber de Coloribus and Mappae Clavicula say for a length of time.  Right now, the verdigris coated tubes are sitting on an old fan blade to dry out.  Once they have dried out, I'll scrape the verdigris off the copper and weight it on a scale to see how much verdigris was made.  Right now after winter passes, I'm planning on repeating this experiment with a few different vinegars and at least one stopping at a different time since the biggest change from 9 weeks to 6 months was the color of the vinegar in the jar.

Six months later...

The jar is finally opened.

Everything pulled out to start the drying process.

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

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

Sharp Change of Direction

I'm making some profound changes to my book project idea.

While doing some more searching for digital facsimiles on the web, I ran across one of the many Anglo-Saxon chronicles. It's known by several names, the Parker Chronicle, the Winchester Chronicle, or Manuscript 173, and I found it here at Parker Library on the Web.
Image of f 11 R:

I've decided to attempt a few quires, or loose booklets, based on this manuscript for a "History" theme arts and science comp that's coming up in December. I'm only planning on quires right now as I'm still working on learning the book binding arts, and making the quires is one of the first steps in making the book.  I also don't know if I have the time to do all the calligraphy.  I think I've nearly pulled together all the information I want to include right now, so it's time to work on my calligraphy and layout.

Isaac