Secundus Nuntius: Gloria

Greetings from the B site! You're probably asking yourselves "What happened to that lovely writing desk he was using before?" (You're probably not but let's pretend you are).  Sometimes I like to do my work in the living room mostly because it's warmer there, and sometimes I find it easier to paint. Following on from last week's work on the Gospel project I decided I needed to jump back to the Prayer book.  I don't want to simply focus on one project and ignore the other.  I know back in the day scribes would focus on only one project until its completion.  But these projects are as much about practicing and experimentation as they are the end result.

So this week I present to you the Gloria.  Following the same pattern and colour scheme as the Gospel project from last week.  Strangely I had a slightly different problem to what I normally experience.  I had too much paper!  Normally I get about half way down the sheet and think "This isn't going to fit!" yet this time I found myself thinking "how am I going to fill this paper?"

Needless to say it worked out rather well.  I didn't try to keep the block uniformed text, I didn't see the benefit of trying to do so as I thought it would make the whole presentation worse.

I was half tempted to keep things uniform in terms of colour schemes, yellow gold etc.  But the red and white gold seemed to work really well for the Gospel so I thought I would go with it here.


This time around I decided to try out two new techniques.  The first I have actually tried before in practice runs the second I haven't tried at all until now. 

In my collection of various inks I actually own a gold metallic ink.  I've only used it once, and that was back during the altar card project.  Here I decided that the Iesu Christe needed to stand out.  Initially thinking of red which is my default colour for things like this, however my hand found gold first.

The second was applying a second layer of gold (of a different colour) on top of the first.  After applying the white gold and letting it set for about an hour, I then applied the gold leaf as a detail.  My worry was that sometimes gold can stick to gold if the surface is a little damp, I was half expecting to see this horrid mess of white gold and yellow gold when I peeled away the second layer.  But the end result was fantastic, adding a little black ink around the edges adds a nice little effect in different lighting.  After this, it was just applying the paint and the gold highlights, the usual white gold detail down the side.

Here's the end result:

Primus nuntius: Evangelium

Completed the first page of the Gospel of John.  The page took roughly 6 hours spread across three days in total.  Not every page will be as detailed as this one.  I simply cannot afford to make every single page like this, regardless how much I enjoy doing that.  The following pages will be block text with a smaller illuminated letter for the start of each chapter.  Certain chapters will have larger illuminations as the front page just to break things up, with an illustration that relates to the following text.  Once I start the second page I will know if I will be able to write back to back, or if I will have to follow plan B.

Here are the pictures of the first page:

The curvature of the page makes it look like the lines are not straight in these two pictures, but I can promise you they are.

 

I am happy with the outcome of this page.  The text is fairly uniform, and I managed to keep the lines straighter than I have managed previously with a paint brush.  I might add to this down the line, but I am extremely happy with the result.

Prioribus operibus

In the first post I promised that I would upload some of my previous works.  I was conflicted about doing this initially as some of the work contains errors and others I would do differently/better now.  However it's good to see where I was and where I am now.  So I'll post in the order (ish) of completion.

Altar Cards

Actually not my first piece of work completed, but it was the first serious work I started.



Consisting of five individual sheets (three for the centre piece) of paper cut to size, the idea was if a mistake was made I would not lose the entire project.  The gold here is artificial, I had not yet found a place that sold gold leaf at a reasonable price.  Overall I am happy with these (except the mistake, see if you can spot it).  I would like to remake them, however it took a considerable amount of time to prepare and copy out.  Even longer still to find a suitable frame. 

Ave Maria

This is the first work completed but second undertaken.  I needed a break from the altar cards but more importantly I had discovered a reasonably prices supplier of 24ct gold leaf.

Decided to be a little more ambitious with the illumination on this one, and slightly more artistic with the lettering.  I will more than likely reproduce this, however next time I will make the text more uniform and central along the bottom.  I have made two of these already, and I've not managed to hold onto them for long.  I suspect I will need to make the third in secret if I hope to keep it for myself.

St Jude

One day a lovely statue of St Jude arrived in the Parish, it was agreed that a prayer to St Jude should be made to go with it. 

Overall I quite like this one, I think if I was to redo this though I would really clean up the lines and add more detail to the boarders.  This was the first attempt at a raised 3D illumination.  The M was built up over three days to form a 3D shape for the gold to sit on.  The idea is to create a shadow effect to make the letter stand out even more that it would on a flat surface.

 

I've yet to try this method again due to the time required.  A total of three days was needed just to reach this stage.  That is not including writing and painting the card.  The effect is worth the time taken though.

 

First "commission" of sorts

 

About a year ago I decided to produce a piece that would be shipped off to the states to a friend of mine.  I cannot share the actual text of the sheet, as it is from a novel that she is writing.  However I can show the illumination.  This was my first use of white gold leaf in any of my work.  This was a strange project as it was my first production where I did not choose the colours or the leaf to be used.  It was created to set specifications given to me, however I did take certain artistic licence and slipped a little gold in there.

 

 

 

There were other works here and there, but mostly just copying texts as practice in learning fonts. 

 

Valete.

 

 

 

In principio

In Principio erat Verbum.  So last night I made a start on the Gospel oh John project.  To avoid my usual slip up of adding or missing out words, I decided to use a "pointer".  I am not sure if that is an actual term.  However in many medieval depictions of scribes at the time, they are shown writing in one book with a quill while using a second tool in the left hand pointing at the source material.  What ever this is actually called (if anything) I can say it worked great.  No duplications or missing words this time around.







Things turned out better than I expected, despite some technical issues with the pen (as in suddenly not leaving ink on the page despite plenty of ink on the nib).  I was aiming for consistency in size and aiming for a more "blocky" presentation of the text, similar to the "justify" settings on a word processor. Frustratingly however, there was more bleed through on this sheet than the test samples sent to me.  Meaning I may not be able to write on the reverse side of this page or future pages.  It defeats the object of the project to have back to back pages throughout, but this is ultimately a training exercise so it wouldn't be a complete disaster.  I will have to wait and see how the reverse looks once I have illuminated this page.  That being said, the majority of this book will be block text. I'll know more once the second page is complete.

Here's a closer look of the page so far:

 

Valete!

Ego Scriba!

I look exactly like this, sorta

Welcome to Ego Scriba (I scribe).  If you are here, you either know me, or I've pestered you to come here, or you are very lost.  I'll get it out of the way and say I don't like blogs.  However a blog is probably the easiest method to keep everyone updated on what I am doing.  Basically the idea is a single place where I upload and post updates regarding my past, present and future calligraphy projects.  My work mostly focuses on illuminated manuscripts, prayers in both Latin and English.  I have created non religious works for friends which I have enjoyed.  I try to do something new with every project to push the learning forward and give myself a challenge.  I decided to kick start this blog off on Ash Wednesday as the current and new project are of a religious nature.  The current project is a collection of prayers used in the Traditional Latin Mass accompanied with additional prayers to be added over time. 





So far the first two pages have been completed, the "Asperges me" and "Vidi Aquam".  This is the first manuscript project I've undertaken.  Normally I work with individual sheets of vellum or vellum like material.  I've yet to try a single "book" until now. Following the "Asperges me" and "Vidi aquam" the Gloria and Credo will follow.  After this the Prayer to the Sovereign followed with the Leonine prayers, then the Rosary Mysteries.  After this I will be taking suggestions as to what should be added next.


The new project beginning with Lent, is an entire reproduction of the Gospel of John.  Complete with Illuminated letters at the beginning of each chapter, and entirely in Latin.  This will be a very long term project and I fully expect this to go well into 2019 if not longer before it is complete.

So welcome to Ego Scriba, please feel free to comment and ask questions.  The next post will be concerning work I've done up to this point.

Valete!