Maastricht Hours (Ice Dragon Entry)

Here's another process post!
I was inspired to make this piece once I realized how small some of these prayer books actually where. I was too weary to make one so small as an award scroll so I made it as an Ice Dragon Entry.

This piece is inspired by the Maastricht Hours, which is an excellent book for grotesques, with hundreds of pages.
Where: Netherlands
When: 1st quarter of the 14th century. 
Size: 9.5cm x 7cm
Materials: Parchment, ink, gold leaf & paint, most likely tempera for the colors.
Info and Images digitized at the British Library and available here. In the middle of the page is a picture of a blank page with the words '581 images available' next to it, click the image to begin viewing. 

My rendition:
Size: 9.5cm x 7cm
Materials: Parchment, ink, gold leaf & paint, and guache. 

I had bought a tiny piece of parchment from Pergamena, and had to cut it down even a bit more!

I penned in the text area with a light sepia. That's right, PENNED. The lines are always still left in the prayer books. Penciling in and erasing the lines when we are done is mostly a modern aesthetic. I used the same number of lines and same dimensions for the text space as the original.

This is one of my first attempts at calligraphy. I felt I needed it for the piece to look complete. I don't know latin so I incorporated an english quote, so it would make sense to me. I also did not cut words at the margins. For how small it is and how new I was to all of this, I think it's pretty good :)

Then I added the rubrication. Yup, red inked words were also called rubrication. They were inputted into books as side notes of a sort. They also shortened words with common abbreviations. I made up some of my own.

Then I illuminated the smaller capitals. They were painted in with gold shell (paint) and blue paint. After painting in the letter, I added the rubrication around them (this time I'm talking about the pen flourishes) in red and blue ink.

I sketched in what would become the illumination. Different pieces are compiled from elements on different pages of the original, and some of it is just made up. The best part of this not being an award scroll is that I didn't need blank borders all the way around.

These are the three pages that I took most of the shapes and grotesques from. f69v, f85r, f92v, if you want to view them bigger online.

This is the point when I decided to try using actual gold leaf instead of just filling in with shell gold. Technically this should be done much earlier in the process, because the gold may stick to inked and painted areas where you don't intend it to go. But I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. 

At this point I realized I wouldn't be able to get the gold as smooth as I wanted. I was having trouble with the gold not staying on while I was burnishing it. It was super thin, as you can imagine. I tried all sorts of stuff to get it to stick, including garlic juice. Yes, this piece smells like garlic, and so did I for a while after that! (It didn't work) I now have thicker gold leaf and proper gesso to work with thanks to my Laurel, Sir Aengus and his wife, Mistress Yvianne. So there will be another shot at gold leaf in my future. Below is what I had hoped to do on the gold leaf, get it smooth enough to stamp a pattern into it:

Close up of the Maastrict Hours f69v.

Painted in the base colors and outlined everything.

After the whitework and some other details where added, the finished product!

Thanks for stopping by!

Inspired by the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht

A while ago, I worked on a scroll for Tadhg Sotal O Neill's Court Baroncy. I wanted to make it epic, and challenge myself, so this one has a lot to it. 

It is based on the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht
Where: Flemish, Bruges
When: 1525-1530
Artist: Simon Bening
Size: 6 5/8" x 4 1/2"
Materials: Parchment, tempera, gold leaf & paint, ink.
All of this info, along with the digitizations of the pages can be found online at the Getty Museum, here. On the right there is a small 'Page through the book' button to view the images. Later in the post I will include some of the inspiration images.

My rendition was done on watercolor paper made by an Italian company (Fabriano) that has been around since before the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht was illuminated. I scaled up the work to make it a more common SCA award size and to be able to fit all the text that Will Parris wrote for it. 

The following are the progress pictures of this project, with notes strewn throughout.

I decided to make it like it was two pages of the book. Here I have blocked out the variously sized margins.

Beginning to fill in the architectural elements. I penciled them in, but there's also images with upped contrast so you can see what's going on.

This was the page that the above above sketches are based on. I freehand the sketches because I feel it makes me learn the style a lot better if I have to think about making the shapes instead of tracing them. So it won't turn out exactly like the original, but I feel that's a good thing.

We so frequently ignore the images inside the margins because that's where we end up putting in the words, but I decided I wanted to include one. I liked this feast scene as he was recognized for making feasts in the SCA, and I could incorporate people of note easily. Mick is sitting in the back left, next to King Maynard (who is sitting next to his lovely Queen Liadain), who where the Royalty to award him his Baroncy. I put myself (illuminator and calligrapher) in the bottom center left with my artist's mark hanging from my belt, and Will (word composer) in the bottom left with his heraldry, a cinkfoil, on his pouch. The rest of the people do not represent anyone specific.

This is the feast scene I was basing it off of. No, I was not trying to make any religious parallels...

This was the bottom and side of the right page. 

This is the page that my right page is based on. I figured the man on the right was appropriate as using a pole arm. I changed the man on the bottom to be holding a sword. I also incorporated a crest below the column on the right.

Completed sketch.

Then I moved on to the calligraphy. Calligraphy makes me infinitely more nervous that painting. Painting is like meditating while calligraphing is like a very intense game of operation. I think this was back when I was using my speedball nibs. I left space for the capitals to be painted in. I also made some mistakes which I scraped off and fixed.

The full body of text.

This is the next picture I have, I wish I had one before I had done the shading on everything. Fabric looks so weird without the folds shaded in, and always makes me nervous, but it always turns out fine. That escarbuncle was a bit of a challenge not to get red in. I enjoyed painting the stools.

I then filled in the table with settings and food. I did some of the hair.

Hair is hard, but I think I did ok :)

Then I moved on the paint the background of the architectural margins, complete with drop shadows.

Me adding in the base color for the 'gold' parts.

The completed piece. I added the banners of his household to either side of the Aethelmearc heraldry. I made up the capital T based on the other large capitols in the prayer book. There are six little capital letters that are supposed to be in front of pearls, representing the six pearls on a Baron's coronet. They also start the six sentences outlining the awesome deeds of Tadhg Sotal O Neill. This picture I also don't think does the yellow in the painting justice, my phone is not the best camera.

I had a lot of fun making this, it was definitely a challenge! There will be more process posts on others of my scrolls to come!
Thanks for stopping by!!