This is the story of the twenty four hour court baron scroll.   I have a good friend Lottieri Malocchio who was getting a Court Barony, but something got lost in the translation on the scroll assignment, so I didn't end up knowing about it until Wednesday night for a Saturday event. 

So, quick!  To the Bat Cave! 

Some quick research and I find this:  A German woodcut of a drummer dated 1525-1530, part of a series of fifty woodcuts picturing Landsknecht soldiers.

No time for fuss, or muss.  I get a picture of Malocchio, and I'm off.  Within 24 hours, I produce a pen and ink version which is a little bit more 16th century Italian Master of Defense.

Pennsic was fun, art-wise.  The weather, as everyone is aware, sucked and was very accurately described as "The War in Satan's jockstrap". 

I taught classes for the first time, which was fun, but a little stressful.  The stressful part was being aware of time.  Normally, during Pennsic, I am aware of daytime or nighttime, eating time or fighting time.  Not much else.  I needed to be more aware of hourly time, which brought me out of my medieval mindset.   I also brought my iPhone to use to keep time for the 2 minute, 10 minute and 15 minute poses.  I think I would like to get an hour glass in different sizes.

Class number 1:  Figure Drawing Salon

Draw from live models in medieval poses. Practice your sketching, get feedback, or just relax and work on your drawing. Bring drawing supplies.

I had wonderful models, Mistress Anastasiia Gutane, Master Ruslan, Master Lucien, and Mistress Aldreda for the two sessions.  The first session was Peace week on Thursday, and the second was during War week on Wednesday.  It was an excellent idea to space them out.  Aldreda mentioned that she had a website that gave advice on using models, and I am hoping that she can pass that along because that will help me in making good use, and treating my models well.

I also ran a second class which was Portraits on Friday of Peace Week which was:

How to draw portraits of people. What are the specific things that you need to look for that changes a base portrait in order to "read" as a specific person? This class will guide you in the development of those skills. Bring drawing materials, pencils, pastels, charcoal and paper of your choice. Some limited supplies will be available

Student working on portrait of Master Feral.

Student working on portrait of Sir Antonio.

Student working on portrait of Viscount Alexandre.

Master Ruslan and Mistress Anastasiia.

As well as doing classes, I was teaching a friend from a neighboring camp about painting.  Mary and I have been trying to get together to do this for a while, but she lives way south and I live way north, but we were finally living within 15 feet of each other.  So I dragged out my supplies and I taught her some painting.  It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon during peace week and it made more sense to her (I hope) in person. 

The other artsy thing is that I am working on during Pennsic is my Artifacts of Life entry for 2017.  This year I decided I wanted to make an artist palate like the ones that I have seen in the self portraits of many Italian renaissance painters. 

I worked with Gaius in camp, our resident wood worker, and took a piece of wood he had lying around and I started shaving it down with a hand plane.  Gaius is a really good instructor in that he shows the stroke needed, and then hands the person the tool, while watching.  He then adjusts his student's grip, the tool's bite, and the angle as needed to help the student succeed.  I worked for about an hour, shaving down the wood until it was as smooth as I wanted it to be.  We clamped it down and then made a hole with another hand tool of destruction.  I'll have to check with Gaius as to the name of the tool, but it was a tool that makes a oval rather than circle hole.  I, then, shaved the edges for a rounded edge rather than a square edge.

The piece needs some hand sanding, and I even might use a hand plane to make it a little thinner.    After that, I will need to oil or varnish it.  I've already started digging up research on that here on what the vikings did and here on a blog about woodworking using medieval methods  and here on the Smithsonian Museum Conservation site as well as looking through my notes on Cennini.

First my re-enactment piece, then the Research pictures.

Caterina von Hemessen, 1548

`The East Kingdom Calendar project is a fundraiser for the royalty fund.   I did it last year, and was asked again to do it this year.   The website is here.

The assignment for the 2017 calendar - signs of the horoscopes and I decided that I would love to do Scorpio, my own sign. Many calendars of the period of time that I study (500 AD to 1600 AD) have illuminations of the astrological symbols as well as labors that occurred during that calendar month.  I was assigned October, and Scorpio.   I was provided with some research that Gundormr provided to assist all the artists on this prjecct, and also did my own digging.

RESEARCH:

The medieval visuals for Scorpio showed me that sometimes the artists really didn't know what a real scorpion looked like, and so the representation was on a spectrum of somewhat like a scorpion, or more like an ugly, black bug or a dragon-like creature with pincers for good measure.  Dragons came up frequently.  Sometimes a fierce dragon, sometimes a dragon biting its own tail, and sometimes a two headed dragon.   I collected a variety of medieval visual representations of Scorpio and started to decide what elements I would like to incorporate in the calendar.  The calendar has very particular requirements as to size and includes wording on each month.    So step one, the examples.

Horoscope of Prince Iskandar, grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror. This horoscope shows the position of the heavens at the moment of Iskandar's birth on 25th April 1384.  The scorpion looks like a modern day horseshoe crab than a scorpion.

Close up of the scorpio portion of the Horoscope of Prince Iskandar, grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror. This horoscope shows the position of the heavens at the moment of Iskandar's birth on 25th April 1384.

Scorpio, Book of hours, Italy, probably Milan, ca. 1473, This has a nice color scheme, but this is the epitome of black bug.  What is interesting is that another artist for the calendar project chose this exemplar but for Libra.

Manuscript from 1447, Italian,  Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo II.  This is an interesting one, but the color scheme seemed too faded for a calendar assignment.  Here we start seeing the Dragons being included in the text.

 Illustrating the entry in a herbal for the plant called plantain, a man defends himself from a scorpion and a dragon-like viper (adder). Plantain was said to cure the bite of both creatures.   This composition was interesting and had some potential.   As with the previous manuscript, we see a scorpion and a dragon.

Above:    Astronomical treatises [Sufi latinus],  Scorpio, 1250-1275, Italy, possibly Bologna.

I found several examples where a dragon was used in place of a scorpion.    There are additional ones here : www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=lansdowne_ms_383_f002r 
and here www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_50000_fs001r

Drawing by Theodoros Pelecanos, in a 1478 copy of a lost alchemical tract by Synesius

The Hunterian Psalter, England, C. 1170, Zodiac, Sign of Scorpio, Folio 5v. Two headed dragon.

Close up of The Hunterian Psalter, England, C. 1170, Zodiac, Sign of Scorpio, Folio 5v

For extra points, I am subscribed to a blog called Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts and is published by the British Library.  They post about calendars on a regular basis and recently on August 22 did a "Which Star Sign Are You?" on their blog.    I was able to use this website to do more research on calendars and styles.

I decided that I loved the two headed dragon in The Hunterian Psalter.  I set up my pictures, reviewed the text and decided I needed to amend the text to include that scorpio appears as a large scorpion or dragon.  I would need to edit the text down to fit into the space I was allocating for the words.

The text ended up :

"Scorpio appeareth as a large Scorpion or dragon.  She is Fleumatik, ruleth ye Priue Parts of Men and Women, and indicateth Subtelte and Deceite.  When the Mone is on the hunt for the Scorpion, She will seke Nouelte when She needeth to be more dependable, and She might ende vp dronk or in a destitute state.   If Iupiter wandreth bi ye Scorpion, then one mai loke to Ipocrisie, possiblie Bitraiel."    Text by Master Christian von Jauergk.

The other adjustment is that I could not use gold leaf for the project (because gold leaf does not photograph well and so we are asked not to use it)and would have to substitute.

LAYOUT

I printed the words and used a sheet that THL Geffrei Maudeleyne provides.  This is the first time that I used this sheet, and it can be used as long as credit is given.

Layout, line drawing on pergemenata.

After many practice runs, calligraphy laid down.   On one of the test sheets I made the entire layout complete with illumination so that I could lay down tests of the colors, inking, etc.

Mixing Rublev Roman black, and some Hematite.   I ended up using the black, but not the Hematite.  I mixed the pigments by taking the ground pigments, grinding them a little finer and then adding a little bit of water to moisten the pigment, followed by a couple of drops of gum arabic as the binder.  I then mixed in more water to the desired consistency and placed the pigment in the shells that I had been collecting for some time.

Color matching.  See the test sheet with color matching in the middle, and then the test sheet on the left is available for laying the color down and checking how well it is mixed, if adjustments need to be made.   This is the messy part of art that many don't see.

Cleaned up artwork, inking in the illumination.   I used a crow quill pen and Higgins Eternal Ink.

Laying down base layer of dark green and starting the greys.

I ground up some yellow ochre (same process as above, extra grinding, adding water, then gum arabic) and laid down a lovely shade of yellow.  Not quite gold leaf, but it made for a nice contrast against the green and gold.

Now for the lovely details.   This is where the roman black came in.  The roman black is post period to the time period that I am studying, however, it is also closer to period pigments than just a nice processed black out of a tube of Windsor Newton.   I felt that the substitution was acceptable, and am working on acquiring lamp black or bone black for experiments later.

Close up of detail of two headed dragon. Note that there is some blending, but use of the period technique of small hatches (not cross-hatching, that is not found in the exemplars that I have reviewed) to apply the shading.

First layer of detailing on illumination. 

Closeup of hatching technique, and layering.

Addition of the red pigments on the initial "S" and on the dragon.  Three different shades of red employed for the details of the wing. Dark greenish black filigree in the green interior around the dragon.  Paint the dragon's toenails black.   More subtle shading of the entire dragon, building up color, shades, nuances of bone and muscle.

Finished piece.  Light circle details in the gold circle, highlights and deepening of the dark areas.   Application of eraser in all areas.

Reflection :

I have noticed that I need to take a step back while working, as there are flaws that I see from afar that I do not see when nose is two inches from the work.  My calligraphy is improving, however, I still need to work on my spacing.  Even six months later from when I was working on this in July, I can see improvement in my calligraphy in my current pieces that I do not see here.  I also need to work on my technique of not so bumpy circles, which is the first thing that jumps out at me when I look at this illumination now.  I will be researching some techniques, and also practicing inking in and painting in cleaner edges.  I love  the dragon.  I think that the body of the dragon is some of my best shading work.

All in all, I am proud of the research, which I think is much more in depth than previous work, and that the level of painting is getting better and better, but I see still see places where I can improve.

With a very short window to complete the task, I was given an assignment for Doroga Voronin's Silver Rapier.  I told the signet that this would be easy peasy because I know Doroga, and he unwittingly supplied me with all the documentation that I needed.  :-)

A quick jump over to Doroga's webpage at blackbirdsandblades.blogspot.com/
and I was off and running.   Doroga has research materials for La Verdadera Destreza, and I downloaded some original artwork and the translation of the rapier manual.  

I decided that I would have the art look like a page from a rapier manual, and enlisted help from my housemate, Rhiannon, to translate the work into Spanish.

RESEARCH 

I know this extremely gentle, talented, man, however, I wanted more information on him and his persona in order to fill things out a bit.  So I checked into the East Kingdom Wiki, no entry.  I checked FB, yup, there, a few pictures.  I pulled those to give me some inspiration.  The pictures I have seen of Guthfrith is with a hat, so I am looking for his style of clothes and a fashionable hat.  One of the things that I have pointed out for portraits is that there is sometimes one thing that will read X person.  In this case, a particular style of hat will identify Guthfrith.  I then did a general Google search on Guthfrith, and finally came up with some background on the Barony of Ruantallan's page, where Guthfrith and Isobel are Baron and Baronness.  www.ruantallan.eastkingdom.org/our-baron-and-baroness/

"Our personas are firmly rooted in late fifteenth century England these days (despite the C10th Danish name Guthfrith…hmmm). Guthfrith has a wide range of interests including heavy, rapier and siege combat, archery, woodworking, metalworking and miscellaneous A&S. Isobel’s main passion is C15th costuming, but any A&S and particularly anything that creates more C15th ambience is fun (Isobel also looks forward to acquiring a longbow and learning to shoot things more accurately). Occasionally you may see us disguised as sixth century Anglo-Saxons." from their Baronial page.

Since this is for a Golden Rapier award, I first looked into rapier manuals.  The Arma is one of the best resources for fechtbuch's.

www.thearma.org/manuals.htm#.V2BWBzXiONd

I was looking for English, maybe Danish, but just getting some ideas.

I started with Talhoffer's Fechtbuch, which is a German Manuscript, and has three different editions, one dated 1443, one dated 1459, and one dated 1467.

Edition 1467 had several pictures of rapier fighters with hats.

www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t16.htm

http://www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t24.htm

www.thearma.org/talhoffer/t23.htm

Th 1459 edition one also had some nice pictures, and was subtitled "Fight Earnestly".  I found pictures again with hats  page 196 through page 200.  It is a pdf download, so be aware.  There are some nice equestrian pictures in there, so I need to note that for future reference.  Some of the pictures are pretty gory, with chopped off hands, chopped off heads, and blood spurting.  I won't be using anything from those.

www.thearma.org/pdf/Fight-Earnestly.pdf

There is also I33, one of the earliest known rapier manuals, German on sword and buckler from 1295.

i.imgur.com/OgjnwZP.jpg

And Durer's Fechtbuch from 1520.

http://www.thearma.org/Manuals/Duerer.htm#.V3E4MzXiONf

After reviewing them, I decided to go with Talhoffer, plate 23, but use elements from I33 for shading, painting in a different way than I have done in the past, more watercolor shading, rather than true gouache painting that would happen in illuminated manuscripts.

I wrote the wording.  My procedure is to type it up on the computer, print out two copies and then practice. I print two copies because I often mark up one with how many characters, how many lines, notations on where I started and stopped.   I did a few practice runs and then did the layout for the scroll.  I wanted to have the Golden Rapier prominent and center, words at the top and fighters at the bottom. 

I had wanted to experiment with the lovely, looping ascenders and while they are not perfect, I'm happy with the consistent height.  More practice is needed.

Inking up the Golden Rapier and the figures using a crow quill pen and also Higgins Eternal Ink.

Once I started my painting, I just forgot to stop and take pictures along the way.   I'm still working on taking pictures that have appropriate lighting.  I have received some hints from camera savvy friends, so hopefully future photos will be clearer.  I used mosaic gold for the gold in the Golden Rapier, and lapis lazuli from a batch of period pigments that I had and a lapis lazuli that I had greyed out a little more for the left hand fighter.  I also used permanent white, yellow ochre and payne's grey (all Windsor Newton brand) for the rest of the paints.  I always like the way that the ultramarine pops.   The paper was the opaline vellum that I bought at Pennsic last year.  It is closest to vellum without the price and I like how it takes just about anything without buckling.  I highly recommend it and will be picking up some more this Pennsic.

Closeup of figures.

Final scroll.

Reflections:

I liked  the way this came out, it is detailed, but you really have to look carefully for the details.  My calligraphy is improving, but I still need more practice for better period looking spacing.    As I said earlier, I need to improve my photography. :-)

Orlando and I have been friends for a very long time.  He was made an OGR shortly after I was, and it made me very happy to get his assignment.  

RESEARCH

I dove into Orlando's time period by looking at his East Kingdom Wikipage and speaking to his lovely lady over the internet to get some preferences.  I was able to pull his arms off the wiki and also find some pictures of him.   My research needed to focus on Italy, mid15th century to mid 16th century.  I also could do something fencing related with manuals, because Orlando is known for his By the Book Tournament at Pennsic, and his research in period rapier manuals.  I started the research wide at first and then narrowed it down to some specific examples that would work.

I was able to find the following:

Italian Renaissance Manuscript collection in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library:  ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/irm

The Sforza hours which is housed in the British Library and accessible at Turning the Pages
www.bl.uk/turning-the-pages/?id=e5e33e00-a67b-11db-9fe7-0050c2490048&type=book.  

Visconti Book of Hours 
grandiopere.fcp.it/facsimili/en/the-visconti-book-of-hours/. 

The Bible of Borso d'Este
www.wdl.org/en/item/9910/

I decided that I liked the Bible of Borso d'Este the best.  The Bible was commissioned by Borso d’Este (1413–71), the first duke of Ferrara. The manuscript was completed between 1455 and 1461. The original is here: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/9910/view/1/56/. 

The page that I chose to use as an exemplar for the scroll here: www.wdl.org/en/item/9910/view/1/56/

READY TO START

Here is what research looks like for me.  I tape every single idea/source/example on my mirror, along with a picture of the recipient. 

We start with the finished product.  Words by Alys MacIntosich.

Materials used:  Opaline velum, #6 Mitchell Round hand Square Nib (super tiny), Princeton Art Monogram 20/0 paintbrush, a Vienna 0 paintbrush and an American Painter 1 paintbrush. I used Holbein Cadmium Red Purple, Holbein Dark Green, Windsor Newton Ultramarine, Windsor Newton Permanent White, Windsor Newton Payne's Grey, Mosaic Gold for the achievement, and Gold Leaf and a dog's tooth burnisher.

The slide show shows the journey to get there.  This project took approximately 32 hours not counting the time to do the research.

REFLECTION

Weaknesses:
I started the gold leaf on a humid day.  I did not expect that, and in the future will a) plan around the weather better, or b) put the AC on while I do the gold leaf.  This was the first piece, for me, that had this much gold leaf.  Even though it did give me some trouble, I bent it to my will and prevailed.  I wasn't as happy about the inking around the gold leaf, and I would have liked to make that cleaner. I also have some ideas on how to do the gold leaf even better the next time.  Practice, practice, practice. 

I also would put more of the inking up front.  I was worried about messing up the gold leaf, which led me to hold back on the inking which I am far more accomplished at.  This led to having to work around the gold leaf, and then when I had to erase all the pencil marks.  The erasing was laborious as I did not want to erase over the gold, as that would dull it and ruin it.  It took me over an hour and a half to ink the architectural/floral elements and two hours to erase.  

Strengths:
I am very happy with this particular piece.  The amount of detail that I was able to get into the flowers, leaves, and floral elements definitely gave the piece layers which made it look more like the medieval equivalent.  I was pleased with how I could tie together the inking detail with the signature lines.  The gold did shimmer and had the right effect, subtle but hinting at wealth.

I also tried Yellow Ochre mixed with permanent white which seemed to blend and give me the right look.  I was not looking to replicate a black hour illumination or scroll, but an artistic rendering which made the art look like a white line block print.

Next step was sketching out the figure, the placement of the words and the silver rapier.  Many people don't include the messy bits, but I think it is important to include those to show people that the process can be messy and it is an important step.

Next step:  Write the words.  I used Alys' Mad Libs for Scribes and away I went.  The calligraphy was going to be more of an issue, so I mixed enough paint up (yellow ochre and permanent white) with extra water to get the right flow for the "ink" and then painted the paint on my dip pen and start practicing.   As you can see I practiced in white, mosaic gold and the yellow ochre paint.

Now the process pictures.  I sketched everything out lightly in pencil.  First the words, then the banner, then I started the figure.  The difficult part with black paper is that it soaks up the paint quite a bit, so all of these marks/lines/hatching needed to be painted at least twice and sometimes three times, as it would fade instantly with just one coat. 

Final piece, with crown signatures and medallion given for the award to Magdalena.


Reflection:  I was inordinately proud of this work.  I think that this is one of my better pieces by far.  I still need to improve my calligraphy but I am much more confident in it than I have been in the past.  I think I might also balance out the legs a little more, giving the right sided leg  more detail.

Normally the posts on this page have to do with the arts painting, but today we are going on a little sidetrack of arts martial.

Don Remy invited Devon Boorman, co-founder and director of Academie Duello to come teach a full day of Italian Rapier in Arlington, MA.   The backstory is that I have known Devon (as Prospere in the SCA) for a long time when he first started in the SCA so it was delightful to be able to see and catch up with Devon as well as get into some of this new historical knowledge in martial arts that people have been working on.

It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to taking classes again, but woah, my body is aching and my mind is full.  Devon started the class with bracing and squatting as well as a warm up to get us going.  Luckily I had watched his videos prior to the class so I had some pre-teaching and that was super helpful.  Devon is a great teacher, extremely well versed in multiple historical masters and the depth of his knowledge is astounding.  Devon is also a fast paced teacher so that it felt very much like Italian fencing boot camp as we went from drill to drill to drill, with only quick water breaks.  I was able to wrap my mind around the first couple of drills on body mechanics, posture and the point goes into the other guy while keeping yourself safe.  Where I started to fall behind was in making sure that I did the steps in the right order.  Trying to keep the right steps, the new language and kicking my body along like a can was challenging.  As I am thinking about it now and processing, I do realize there were two things going on.  One, I was asking my body to do particular moves that I don't do often.   The isolation of the top half of my body from my bottom half was a challenge and my body is letting me know in no uncertain terms of a flag on the play, moving violation today.   Second, Devon uses all the correct Italian terms.  In my mind I was trying to learn a new language in an immersion style class.  My initial training was classical fencing, with all the terms in French.  So as Devon would say the Italian words for what we were doing, what guard to take, such as Seconda, Terza and Quarta, I was translating in my head quickly the numbers I had been taught, analyzing the different guard and then physically trying to push my body to do the guard correctly without relying on my experience.  Trust me, there was a lot of thinking, releasing the old and trying to learn the new and taming the frustration.   There were times though that I needed to go with what I know.  As I was taking apart a transition piece, my sparring partner said to me, "You've done that move a hundred times on me, I know you know how to do it."  With some tweaks and relaxing a bit, I was able to do the move, but I struggled between doing what I know and layering on the new knowledge.  This was a  full body experience which lead to getting tired and overfull.

There was not a lot of down time to process the material and I left at around 4:30 before the class was to begin the last session of Rapier and Dagger which was going to last until 6 p.m.   I think it was a wise decision.  My mind could not keep even the simplest of instruction in my head, I kept saying to my sparring partner, "What are we doing now?" and decided that this was not pushing me forward as I would lose what I already had learned.   I think over the next week I will process the parts that I did learn.  I would take the same class over again in the future as that would help me acquire the original material with repetition and hopefully build a platform so that I could learn the new stuff that went whizzing over my head.

And it was great to see Devon again.

For more information if you are interested in the arts martial for rapier, look here.

Donovan was kind enough to post a glossary that I am finding incredibly helpful as it is a second language dictionary for me which you will find here:  http://www.salvatorfabris.org/RapierGlossary.shtml

Painting

1            Materials

• Windsor Newton Ultramarine
• Windsor Newton Permanent White
• 3 or 4 pipettes (A pipette or dropper is a laboratory tool commonly used in chemistry, biology and medicine to transport a measured volume of liquid)
• glass container of distilled water
• 2 glass containers of water to clean brushes as you work
• mixing brush or toothpicks
• painting brush
• white glove with thumb and first finger cut out
• paint tray
• paper (Pergamenata, Bristol Board, Opaline Vellum)
  

2            Before you begin

1.  Clear surface to paint.  Either have a flat or angled surface, but it must be free of things.    I clear the entire table for working and then slowly, but surely, things collect to me.  Paint, brushes, water, paper.  So start with a clear surface.

2.  Research the subject for the project.  Produce a layout.  Do the layout several times to make sure that the layout is pleasing.  Once painting begins it is more difficult to change.  Not impossible, but challenging.

3.  Lightly draw the art.  If appropriate, use pen and ink to outline.  One rule - crown quill pen and ink to outline prior to painting, black paint with a thin brush or crow quill pen after painting.  If ink is used after painting, the ink bleeds.

3             Step one - Mixing

• Mixing paint
• Consistency -light cream
• Use pipettes
• Dividing up paint to make shades

 
4            Painting

• 90 degree angle of paint brush to table
• Fill paint brush with paint, brush excess off
• Use only tip
• Don’t drag brush
• Wet on wet technique
• Don’t go back over places where you have painted
• Rewet the paint as needed so that it stays consistent
• Let the paint dry and examine
• Practice, practice, practice
  

 
5             Color matching

• Paper swatch
• Shades
  

6             Shading

• Practice shading technique
• Base color must be completely dry before starting shading technique using lines
• Base color can be wet for blending technique

 
7            Highlights
 

• Paint - consistency of light cream
• Fill paintbrush with paint
• Paint at 90 degrees with just tip
• Add water when paint starts to dry out
• Wet on wet technique
  
• Use of lines to shade

 
8           Where to get materials

• Paper Ink and Arts  http://www.paperinkarts.com/
• Dick Blick   http://www.dickblick.com/
• Scribblers  www.scribblers.co.uk
• John Neal Books   http://www.johnnealbooks.com

Painting can be intimidating.  Here are some guidelines and suggestions that will make it easier.  I recently had a paint day with Tola and she was gracious enough to take pictures during the process.

Before you begin:

1.  Clear surface to paint.  Either have a flat or angled surface, but it must be free of things.    I clear the entire table for working and then slowly, but surely, things collect to me.  Paint, brushes, water, paper.  So start with a clear surface.

2.  Research the subject will be painting.  Produce a layout.  Do the layout several times to make sure that you are happy with how everything is arranged.  Once you start putting down paint it is more difficult to change.  Not impossible, but challenging.

3.  Lightly draw the art.  If appropriate, use pen and ink to outline.  One rule - crow quill pen and ink to outline prior to painting, black paint with a thin brush or crow quill pen after painting.  If ink is used after painting,  the ink bleeds, although some artists have had some issues with inks bleeding/reconstituting once touched by paint.  Your best bet is always to do test pieces with your materials.

Materials:

• Windsor Newton Ultramarine
• Windsor Newton Permanent White
• 3 or 4 pipettes (A pipette or dropper is a laboratory tool commonly used in chemistry, biology and medicine to transport a measured volume of liquid)
• glass container of distilled water
• 2 glass containers of water to clean brushes as you work
• mixing brush or toothpicks
• painting brush
• white glove with thumb and first finger cut out
• paint tray
• paper (Pergamenata, Bristol Board, Opaline Vellum).
  

Above:  Clean surface, copy of researched art, paint brushes, paint tray with mixed paint, layout, practice paper, scrap paper for color matching, and pencils.

As you can see, more materials just keep on coming to the table.

Let's start.
  

Put a small dollop (see picture below) of blue into one well, and a dollop of white into the other well.  Take a pipette and add three drops of distilled water to the blue.  Use mixing brush until the water and the blue are mixed together.  The desired consistency is that of light cream.  If it is too dry, add one drop at a time and continue to mix until the consistency of light cream is attained.  If is too wet, add a little bit more paint a little at the time until the paint is the consistency of light cream.   Using the pipette will guard against adding too much water at the beginning.  This takes time and practice.   Start with a little bit of paint first until you get the hang of it.  Don't be afraid to stop and throw out the paint and start over. 

Once the blue is mixed, clean out the mixing brush thoroughly using soap and water or get another toothpick.  Dry the brush and start mixing the white the same way that the blue was mixed.

Voila, paint.

One should not use the paint as it comes out of the tube.  Unless for some crazy reason the color matches perfectly, an artist will need to mix up matching colors.   We will discuss color matching later in this blog.

Take some of the blue and divide it into two more wells in your paint tray.   Then add one portion of white to one, two portions of white to the second, and three portions of white to the third.

 This will produce three shades plus your white.

This procedure will allow for practice in portioning colors and mixing.  Always make sure that the paint is the consistency of light cream.  If it start to get thicker, add water.   This will happen over time as the paint drys normally.  I found that during the winter (when the humidity of the air is lower) that the paint dries in the paint tray very quickly, so I will continue to add water as I paint.

Start practicing painting:

First make some circles on a piece of paper.  Make sure water is added with the pipette if the paint is beginning to dry up.  Dip the brush into the paint, getting a decent amount of paint on the brush. This is called filling the brush.  Wipe off the brush on the way out of the paint tray.  With the brush at a 90 degree angle to the table, start to lay the paint down with the tip of the brush.  The procedure is to work wet on wet.  It is always a temptation to outline, but don't do it.  What should be felt is that the paint is pulled to the places that the artist wishes it to go.   This will sometimes make the brush change the angle, but try to maintain the upright angle with only the tip coming in contact with the paper.  Try not to drag the brush.  The tip should glide across the paper.   If it feels like it is scratching the surface, refill the brush with more paint.  Continue to work from one side of the circle to the other until it is full.  Then let the paint dry.  The paint should look like smooth glass if you have done this right.

What will be seen is a couple of things.  Paint dries unevenly so watching the paint dry can be educational.  That does not mean that the procedure was done incorrectly, only that artists need to wait until the area dries completely.  Some cautions.  Don't try to repaint over areas that look uneven at this point.  Re-painting will make those icky brush strokes that are to be avoided.  Wait until it dries completely and then assess.  If the procedure has been done correctly (filling your paintbrush, wet on wet, making sure that the paint is still cream consistency) the paint will dry in a consistent color with no brush marks.

Things to look for:  If you have bare patches, or little spots where the paper can be seen, you probably didn't have enough paint in your brush or the paint was too wet or too dry.   If brush strokes can be seen, the paint was too dry, or the brush was not in the 90 degree angle to paint.

Repeat the exercise with the remaining circles.  Remember the mantra, fill the brush, 90 degrees, wet to wet, rewet the paint.

For color matching, start with an estimate/guess of the correct shade to the original adding white, black, grey, or a complimentary color (see color wheel for more information on colors to add in order to match a particular color) and make the paint marks.  Continue to add white, black, grey or complimentary color a little at the time and paint each shade on the edge next to the previous shade.  This will do two things.  The color change will be clear, and you can tell what is color needs to be added next.  Each shade is then painted on the edge, and the edge is easily put next to your original to see if it matches.   Color match after each change in shade.

Also for shading, to make different tones of the shades needed there is either high contrast or low contrast to chose from.   (This website explains nicely the difference between hue, tints and shades).     The picture below shows the difference between low contrast and high contrast for shading.  Which is chosen depends upon the original source material.

Time to lay down some shading.   There are several ways to do this, but one method that is used by medieval artists is the idea of shading with lines.  Look closely at the below example below of the demon illuminated from A Hellmouth Structure from the "The Hours of Catherine of Cleves" 1440.  All of the shading is by very fine lines.

So now to practice the technique.

The circles of paint have dried, now you are going to use a lighter shade and paint tiny lines. 

The circles on the left side have darker shade at the top, and the circles on right shade have lighter shades from the top to a darker shade on the bottom.  Again, practice, practice, practice.