Busy busy...

Busy, busy... Yep.  Life's in full swing, but I'm still managing to get a few things done from time to time.

I'm currently slowly moving forward on a quote a friend wanted me do for her.  About half of it is currently drawn and I need to do the layout for the other half and practice the calligraphy.

I did manage to whip out a little cover illumination for the local newsletter.  I'll have to see about getting a copy of the image for my records. I did receive a copy of the newsletter.

Also, our local group is looking for more designs to it's awards, so I've spent the past few lunch hours looking for designs that might work.  I'll have to start sketching the ideas now, right now it's just a list of manuscript titles and folio numbers.  The calligraphy doesn't have to be done so that's a help, but a few designs are going to require the calligraphy being done to make sense.  Right now, I've been trying to pick designs from a variety of times and places.

Isaac

Showing and Reading

Thanks to a few friends I went ahead and showed several pieces of my illumination at LPT (Laurel's Prize Tournament) the other weekend.  Besides drool, I received a lot of nice complements and several suggestions on things to try out, like rawhide goat skin for drum heads to use as a work surface.

I've about finished reading the Mediaeval Painters' Materials and Techniques book.  It has several things I want to experiment with that I've started gathering the supplies for.

Isaac

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

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