Devious Journal Entry

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!