French/Dutch Three Quarter Border
Here is the line drawing, and here is the painting.
This border is based upon a a couple of sources: a French leaf from the 15th century in my personal collection, and the borders in the prayerbook I made. The prayerbook, in turn, was based upon a variety of Dutch manuscripts from the early 15th century. The period exemplers are written, generally, in a very even gothic textura, but I substituted a gothic littera bastarda. As I have said before, there are plenty of instances of g. littera bastarda used for Franco-Flemish books of this era, but I make the substitution primarily because I prefer the bastarda 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 drafting board, 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. I traced the illumination with the technical pen.
I then laid the gilding base. This was the first time I'd used gilder's malt. I've never had anyone tell me how to use it, so I was kind of stumbling around on my own. I first tried using the malt straight from the jar, but this was too thick. I thinned it with water, then applied the malt to the scroll. The malt could take the gold right away, but it worked better if allowed to sit for about an hour first. The malt is certainly more pleasant-smelling than gum ammoniac, but, as you might suspect from the name, it is rather like a syrup. It left little trails on the page, places where the malt stretched like cooking candy in thread stage, and would not break away from the brush. I think I will try thinning it more next time. AFter laying the base, I laid the gold and the one little bit of aluminum.
Once this was finished, I began to paint the scroll. I used the size 3 round to lay the paint and the 3/0 brush to put in the white detailing. Upon drying, I used the technical 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.
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