sipho56

Illumination workshop, day 1!

I found the place where I was supposed to go, it’s a very elegant old house that looks into the gardens of the art faculty right in the middle of the city. The two ladies who run the place are very nice. They also have a cute dog called Kiki (wtf). With me are only three other pupils, two being old veterans of the school working on their own projects, and just one is a complete newbie like me.

After introducing everyone we got right down to work. We were given an illuminated letter that we are going to reproduce.

First, we traced the letter on our paper (300g watercolour paper)

Then we inked it (with india ink and a drawing nib)

Then comes the work to set the gold.

First, we put down two layers of vermillion paint on the golden parts. This red will show slightly through the gold and give it a warm shine.

Then we apply 3 layers of gold paint (here we actually worked with bronze instead, and I only had time for two layers before it was time to leave.) Between each layer of gold paint, you need to polish the previous layer by rubbing it with this glass pebble thing (or anything hard tbh) to make it shine and adhere better.

So that’s where I’m at for today. It’s a little frustrating because of how slow it is - and the teacher says I go too fast and need to take my time! But I want results!

Two great news though : they use those ceramic tiles as palettes, which I hadn’t thought of but they are super convenient, and I’ve been hunting for jam jar tops instead!! and also that gold we are using… I actually have something very simillar. I just didn’t know how to use it. Yey!

So, all next week, I’ll be at a workshop on illumination, in an actual illumination and manuscript school. It should be really cool and interesting, I hope. I’ll be posting some stuff about it on here, of course. I’m leaving later today to go there, and I’m super excited!

Ugh - I went to change a few things on my DA, since I understand how the site works better now. But I added some old artworks to my "featured" gallery and now they show up first in my gallery... I want them to show them at the end! Do you people have any idea how to solve this?

A while ago, I managed to scan a few of my calligraphies, and I finaly got around to assembling them (they are A3 so I had to scan half and half and assemble them in photoshop).
So if you're interested in seeing a better version of stuff, here they are : Galadriel's poem, Bilbo and the Elfenking, an unexpected party, and Home is Behind.

It's my birthday!!!
Well, tomorrow.

Anyway, I got myself some presents, mainly art stuff.



Those are artist's gouache (including a white one which should work better than what I've been using up to now), a 0 brush (I have a few others, but they are from my miniature-painting days, so they are in a terrrrrible state), a flat brush, and a brush pen.

I've used them a bit over the weekend, and I'm very happy with what I got.
The brush pen makes amazing drawings (see Fingolfin, and another thing I can't post yet). I was warned it was tough to master, but honestly I'm impressed with what I managed to do, and hopefully it will get even better
I made the "Bilbo and Thranduil" with the 0 brush and the green gouache, and it was waaaay easier than with my old brush and kid's gouache^^
I've tried the flat brush but didn't get as good a result as I got when I tried with my teacher's brush 2 weeks ago, so I'll ask her to show me again this week.

Meanwhile, join me for some internet birthday cake!

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