Full Border
Here is the line drawing, and here is the painting.
This border is based upon a border surrounding the Lamentation and Anointing miniature in a Flemish work of the early 15th century, the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. While the Master of Catherine of Cleves used this style frequently in other works, this is the only instance of this style border appearing in the Hours manuscript. The Hours is written in a very even gothic textura, but I substituted a gothic littera bastarda. There are plenty of instances of g. littera bastarda used for Franco-Flemish books of this era, but I made the substitution primarily because g. littera bastarda is my favorite hand.
Materials used were:
The tools used in this scroll:
Calligraphy:
Illumination:
Method was, as usual, fairly simple. I ruled out the borders with the pencil and ruler. I used the t-square, Ames lettering guide, and pencil to put in the writing lines for the calligraphy. I marked off my x-height lines (i.e., the line that could contain entirely those letters that do not have ascenders or descenders, such as: x, a, r, e, and so on), inserted the nib into the holder, added the reservoir, put a drop of ink into the pen, and proceeded to write. When finished, I allowed the ink to dry and then erased the calligraphy guidelines.
Next, I used a lightbox to transfer the previously drawn illumination from the layout paper to the scroll. I prefer to draw my illumination elements on a bit of layout paper and then trace the completed drawing to the scroll; this allows me to erase and arrange and correct to my heart's content, without damaging the paper of the scroll. Once this was finished, I began to paint the scroll. I used the size 3 round to lay the paint (green into the teardrop-shaped leaves, red, blue and gold into the trilobed leaves and the initial, and gold into the random circles) and the 3/0 brush to put in the white detailing. Upon drying, I used the rolling ball pen to re-outline those areas needing it. Last, I used the plastic eraser to clean out any stray pencil marks I had not yet erased.
The reference for this work: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves facsimile produced by the publishing company George Braziller.
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