Quinque nuntius: Capitulum Duo

Salvete!

A day later than usual!  It has been rather busy lately, yet here we are again.  We are back to the Gospel project this time.  Not much writing this time, however I decided to go back and try my hand at using Gesso to create a 3d illumination.  I've done this only once before with the St Jude prayer and it was reasonably successful.  I ran a few tests on spare sheets to get back into it before going for it.  However I didn't anticipate just how much it would soak through.  Whenever I do any work I always place a sheet of card behind the page I am working on.  The idea is that if there is any bleed through it will be caught by the card and not affect the additional pages of the book.  Sadly the Gesso soaked through that card and went onto the page behind.  It seems to have dried okay I'll only find out how badly it has been effected once I write on it. 

Okay that's the doom and gloom out the way! The gesso came out fantastic!  I was happy with the shaping and design, however I think next time I might make it slightly larger next time.  Things seem a little cramped but it works well.  I suspect the size will depend on the letter I am illuminating.  Gesso takes 24 hours to fully dry before you can do anything with it, you then have to breathe on it to make it "sticky" before applying the gold.  So 24 hours later and lots of breathing and a very light headed self I managed to get the following result.


Sadly lacking the sandpaper ot skill to scrape away the bumps from the gesso to get that mirror look.  However I'm left with thinking "why didn't I do this sooner?" (Then I remembered that it took three days the last time for one letter).  The effect speaks for itself I think.

I need to work on the lines to make them tidier but that will come with practice and time. In total I applied 3 layers of gold onto the illumination to get the best effect.

After lightly burnishing to get a better shine I applied the paint, going for a two toned look of red and blue.  I was aiming for bold.

I think it worked well.  I might keep the same colour scheme throughout, maybe reversing the red and blue now and then.

On to the writing.  I said I was done with the doom and gloom, I kind of lied.  I had to change nibs half way through writing.  This nib and I have had a love hate relationship recently, I had no choice to use it as it was my smallest nib (turned out not true).  But I discovered that it was scratching the paper and causing a bleed through effect to the other side.  So I had no choice to change, which is a total nightmare.  The new nib took some getting used too, as it's longer (almost twice as long) as the original.  I also have to hold it further back, so things were a little weird at first.  I know it doesn't look like much but that extra length really threw me for a while.

However that being said, chapter 2 is coming along nicely, here is the final result:

 Valete!

iterum loqui de leporibus volo

Salvete!

Sadly no update on the Gospel project this week, I have made some progress but I want to save that for later. Meanwhile I want to talk about the rabbits again (iterum loqui de leporibus volo).  I feel I may have jumped to conclusions and perhaps judged them a little harshly.  In my previous post I gave a few examples of how rabbits depicted in manuscripts were basically psychotic, and let's be fair it didn't take much convincing.

However more recently I have found a drastically contrasting nature of these furry animals.  When they are not riding lions into battle, beheading kings, fighting angels and dogs alike, they have a taste for the arts.  Especially music!

Here we see a rabbit playing the bagpipes, he seems happy enough.  However I cannot help think that the materials used in making the bagpipes might have a questionable origin.  I shall try and remain objective as he seems happy enough.








Seems like flutes and various horns are also popular with the rabbits.  We even have an example of a rabbit playing alongside someone, clearly not as bloodthirsty as I may have first thought.

The harp also seems to be an instrument of choice with the rabbits. Harps have always been the instrument of choice for angels throughout art.  So clearly they cannot be as bad as I have first thought they were? 

 This little guy is even entertaining a bird!













So maybe they are not as psychotic as we first thought they were?  Maybe we have had them wrong all this time?

Then agian.............?????

quārtus nuntius: Credo

Salvete!

Apologies for the rogue Lion yesterday (at least it wasn't a rabbit!). I was slightly behind this week the gilding took a little longer that I thought it would, that and I changed the design a little from the draft.  I was toying with the idea of using gesso to create a raised platform for the gold leaf.  However gesso takes 24 hours to dry so it pushed everything back slightly. 

Had some strange problems with the red ink this time around.  It seems to be a little "watery" and blotched on the page.  It could have just been the paper, however I suspect that I would have had the same effect on the blank ink. It might be time to replace my red ink.

I had a mild panic writing this as it was looking like it might not fit on a single page.  Which was confusing as I managed to fit the Gloria AND the Credo on a single A4 sheet when making the altar cards.  However thankfully it did fit in the end.

This time I decided not to base the illumination off any previous examples that I had seen.  That isn't to say I didn't look to see if there was anything that I would like to reproduce.  But there was nothing that I felt really suited the Credo.

Here is the final product:

 

 

The next prayers to follow will more than likely not be this size, there are a few reasons for this.  Firstly, the prayers are shot: Prayer to the Sovereign followed by the Leonine prayers.  I will probably make the Salve Regina like this however.  Lastly the main reason is that I am running low on materials so for now I will need to be a little more conservative with what I use.  I forgot how expensive this all is!  Well back to the Gospel of John next, starting Chapter 2.

non nuntius: Leo

Salvete!

I am slightly behind on my next piece, it will be completed tonight.  In the meantime here is a picture of a lion playing a violin to keep you occupied.

 

 

Valete!

loqui de leporibus volo

Salvete!

When coming up with ideas for illuminated letters etc I spend a lot of time looking up real examples of medieval manuscripts.  Taking pieces here and there adapting, changing, combining them into something new.  I've seen some fantastic examples that I can only hope to one day replicate, however I have seen some really weird examples as well.  So that bring said, loqui de leporibus volo! (I need to talk about the rabbits).  Seriously I have to talk about the rabbits. 

Here is an example of a rabbit from a medieval manuscript.  I know what you're thinking, "What is so wrong with that?" Here we have a rabbit, looking cute not doing much, being very much rabbit like in his/her behaviour.  Sadly this is NOT the norm.









This is the norm! Rabbits in medieval manuscripts are often violent, extremely violent. I'd even say psychotically violent.  Here we have a rabbit on the back of a snail human hybrid, jousting against a dog riding on the back of a rabbit.  I'll point out that if I were the dog I would be a little concerned with the way the rabbit beneath is looking at him.

 



In comparison the above image, although weird, is rather tame from what we will see next.


So here we have some poor chap being lynched by a couple of rabbits.  It looks like they've already tied his hands up, and it seems likely he is about to have his head bashed in.












 



This poor chap looks like he has been caught in some weird rabbit hunting party.  I can only suspect he was taken to end up being some weird chariot for the rabbits as seen here on the right.








This poor knight has fallen victim to a savage rabbit attack.












Apparently the King of the Dogs has to get involved and lay siege to a rabbit stronghold.












Things get so bad they even battle the angels!

So what on Earth is going on with all the rabbits during the medieval period? If this was one example I would just say the artist was a bit mad.  But we see this time and time again, so what's going on? Why rabbits and not cats? Were these the "cartoon" section of the medieval period? In place of Garfield let's have a rabbit decapitate some random person.

 

However they weren't all bad it seem.  I can only assume this is liturgically correct for the time.

Perhaps we should be focusing our historical efforts in figuring out what went wrong with the rabbits.  Did they all do insane? Was there some secret war between humans allied with Dogs against rabbits?  Is this the real reason they are man's best friend? Please wear your best tinfoil hat before tackling this one.

On a lighter note, here are two women standing in a field of broccoli throwing foxes at each other.  I have no words for this one.

Tertius nuntius: Capitulum Primum

Salvete!


So here we are, I have finally completed the first chapter of the Gospel of John.  There was some delay in continuing the work.  After the first page I had discovered that there was considerable bleedthrough to the reverse of the page.  I decided to skip the reverse side and move onto the second page.  I was hoping that the bleedthrough was basically a symptom of being the first page (technically second) of the book. 

I have to say I am getting faster at lining paper.  I have to say out of all the steps needed in calligraphy this is the worst.  If you look at old examples you'll see that this was done back in the day, I can only assume they disliked it as much as I did.  The text turned out fantastic, nice and uniform as I was hoping it would.  Somewhat frustratingly there was very little bleedthrough.  I was secretly hoping it would be very much like the first page so my choice would be clear.  The problem I was facing was; is the first page the norm, or the second?  I decided to work under the assumption that the second page was the norm and wrote on the reverse.

End result, the first chapter came out fantastically. The plan now is a small illuminated letter to mark the start of the second chapter, probably 1/4 the size of the front page.