Medieval Manuscript Illumination

Gothic Style Border on Vellum

In early July 2010, I went back to college - this time to the College of Charleston for Medieval Manuscript Illumination - what an experience...I graduated in 1975 with a BA in English from USC (without any art courses) so this was my first college art course - it about killed me because a 3-hour course (1/2 Art History, 1/2 Studio Art) was packed, not condensed, into 4 weeks.  And, I had to take it for credit (yikes, dealing with grades again!) because COC frowns on studio art classes being audited.  I don't remember  ever working this hard at USC (maybe because I never went to summer school?) but I absolutely loved every minute of it.  Of course, there were some surprises - like it never occurred to me that I might have to write a term paper (and then found out I had to write FOUR). One night I never even went to sleep, and that's when I really felt like I was back in college.  3 hours of class 2 nights a week - 4 term papers and 4 art projects.  But what a great opportunity!  

The image above was our third project and it was the first one I really got intimately involved in, using resource material from my May trip to Paris and everyone in the class was getting more comfortable with ink and dip pen, gilding, working with natural pigments and egg yolk.  and xacto blades  The only way you can correct a mistake is with a verrrrrry sharp knife.  It's a good thing vellum is substantial...

Anyway, I chose to decorate a border in the early gothic style for a page that might have been from a psalter.  The vine design is from a photograph I had taken of one of the painted side altars in Notre Dame de Paris, and I painted one of the church's gargoyles at the top, outlining everything in black ink with a dip pen.  (I previously found out the hard way on my first project that this can be a disaster if you're not using waterproof ink.) The outline of Notre Dame (ok, it is leaning a little...) is gilded with imitation gold leaf, and working with gold leaf is, to put it mildly, somewhat challenging.  Fortunately, this was my third project in class and I got a lot of practice with the gilding on my second project, which I actually had to do twice (from scratch) because the gold leaf never really adhered well the first time.

I have read, studied, painted and experimented with "Illuminations" ever since the class ended in August - I even rolled out a series for an art show with Artist on Fire called "Beginnings" in December and will post some of those images in the days to come.