From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #177 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Tuesday, July 21 1998 Volume 02 : Number 177 In this issue: Re: [scribes]: Tools of the trade Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? Re: [scribes]: Dirty Tricks Re: [scribes]: PAINTFESTival of the Rose Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? Re: [scribes]: Paint on gold Re: [scribes]: Dirty Tricks Re: [scribes]: Homestudy courses in Calligraphy??? Re: [scribes]: Oil on Gold ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 18:10:53 -0500 From: "Genevieve de Courtanvaux" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Tools of the trade I thank all of you for your responses on my topic. I hope that everybody got as much out of it as I did. I know that I learned about some items I have never even heard of such as the Ames lettering guide. And, I also saw some responses from other people who learned about stuff that they had never heard of. By the way, my list was incomplete by everybody else's standards. When I started the topic I had solely intended on focusing on the design part itself not the callig. or the painting. So in other words, yes I use paint since illumination is what I do. ;~) Anyway thanks again for the responses. Genevieve de Courtanvaux Steppes, Ansteorra ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:21:43 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? In a message dated 98-07-20 02:35:52 EDT, gdc@airmail.net writes: << t the effect was stunning and pretty close to what is represented in the book. I don't know if this same technique would work with shell gold but it might be worth a try. Genevieve de Courtanvaux Steppes, Ansteorra >> It should be as the gum arabic is water soluable-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:21:40 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Dirty Tricks In a message dated 98-07-20 00:49:21 EDT, Aralyn67@aol.com writes: << Hi all, Its pretty durable but like any stencil will warp if you cut out too much. I just stencil the leaves but draw all the vines. Yes it can be found in fabric-craft stores. Aralyn >> You'd be surprised how much you can cut on that stencil material, when I did my daughter's nursery (born eight years ago today) I traced photographs of four real life carousel horses with all the borders and used minimal sections to keep them together and stencilled a border around her nursery. As for my dirty tricks, I have a progression of shield sizes and bordures for them......I thought of one that I want to do for setting up various sizes of heraldic roses. Punch a small center hole in the plastic, and project the lines at 72, 144, 216, 288,and 360/0 degrees, and punch a hole on each projected line at 1/8", 1/4", 1/2", 3/4", and 1", it will save measuring time so I can draw my pentangles then draw the rose....I have also been thinking about doing helms and mantelling templates too (those are mostly for the list tree shield business)-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:21:48 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: PAINTFESTival of the Rose For those of you who asked to be kept informed of Caid's scribal community's attempts "to go public" and get people envolved in scribing here goes: Yesterday 7/19/98 at Caid's Festival of the Rose (a day of arts honoring our Queen) we had our first "paint in", where we painted promissories hoping the public would participate. Luigseach (who is Court Scribe) sent two manilla envelopes full of promissories of which I'd say 15 were already coloured/painted. I volunteered to acquire spac in which to paint, I got two 6' tables and one card table with chairs.......I went to be a good little Laurel and view/comment at the Laurels prize Tourney.....when I got back, all the tables and chairs were filled, I got to paint one promissory, all the other ones were pretty much completed, Aliskye got the folks names and I think all the new folks had alot of fun......we also got asked by the autocrat of Twelfth Night to take the roadshow to that event, she's a Laurel for music, and wanted to go paint but didn't make it down to the painting area and would like to try. The area she lives in is realitively remote (by our standards) and says that there is a need for a scribal roadshow to get fledgling scribes as well as herself and her two apprentices started. So, all in all I'd say we had great sucess, I think Ms. Morgan didn't even get a chance to sit down and play..... JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:21:44 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? In a message dated 98-07-20 09:50:39 EDT, Luiseach@aol.com writes: << I rhink this sounds like a situation where JimBear's technique of mixing garlic juice into the paint would be good, but I'll let him explain it. Luighseach whose air conditioner died over the weekend and it's already 72 and humid at 6:00 in the morning. >> Ick! sorry about the A/C Luighseach considering how miserable Festival of the Rose was yesterday. For the recipie for the garlic juice.... Take a two -three peeled cloves of garlic, use you favorit method of smashing and put in a small vessel that you can put a baggie over......let sit at room temperature for 24 hrs. and the juice will have been released from the garlic. Mix a small amount of juice into the paint and paint onto your gold leaf wipe any areas of gold where you don't want paint as once it is stuck there it is STUCK-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 19:21:42 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Gold leaf for flames? In a message dated 98-07-20 01:33:01 EDT, ickessler@hotmail.com writes: << >I'm doing a scroll that has a couple of cooking fires in the marginalia, and I thought of a trick to make them seem to glow: put down gold leaf for the tongues of flame, then paint over it in red (I've been told you can paint over real gold; is that right?), leaving gaps for the gold to shine through. Does anybody have an opinion on this?< _The Visconti Hours_ (Meiss & Kirsch ISBN 0-8076-1359-2) In this book the author describes a technique used by one of the creators, Giovannino dei Grassi: "He enriched these pigments with three kinds of gold. ...(Shell gold, burnished gold)... Most exceptional of all, he glazed the gold in a transparant red oil...(blah blah blah)...His accomplishment soon impressed illuminators in france, especially the Boucicaut Master, but Giovannino alone commonly employed oil glaze in the borders as well as in the miniatures and only he combined it with so many other luminary devices. His ever-changing, refulgent red-gold remained unique in the history of book." Refulgent: shining radiently, resplendent ( I had to look that one up) Well if you can find a reproduction of a page from this MS (National Library of Florence, BR 397 and LF22) you'll see it. It looks pretty nifty and sounds like the effect you might be looking for. I'm not sure if you want to use oils on paper. You'll get a grease spot. It's red just a hair on the cool side. Perhaps you could use transparent watercolors w/ a bit of extra gum arabic or a touch of soap in it. - Isabel Isabel C Kessler ICQ# 7593252 Per bend vert and counter-ermine, on a bend counterchanged fimbriated, a greyhound courant argent. "I lie in my traces" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com >> Nicholas Hilliard demigod of Elizabethan miniatures, used to put silver or gold leaf under jewells then applied colour on top to give a translucent feel to the painted gems. There was a question regarding applying colour to gold leaf, you can do it by adding garlic juice to your paint. The juice makes it stickier and will work on either real or fake gold, I would suggest using egg tempera for this process as it is more transparent than gouache or watercolour.-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 16:28:44 -0700 From: "Carolyn Richardson" Subject: Re: [scribes]: Paint on gold >> I have noticed over the many years that a lot of SCA scribes tend to use very thinned out washes of color, as would a watercolor artist. It is appropriate way less often than not. Even thin medieval colors were usually thin because of a higher proportion of binder plus water to color, not just higher proportion of water. The later tends to cause underbinding. And yes, I do know of later period sources advising to cut paint with just water when shading, etc., but if you look at the actual manuscripts, you will see that for general laying in of most color, most of the time the color went on thick and was lightened with white, not by thinning.<< I dunno about anyone else but I'm using gouache in pretty thick amounts (in fact, it's got so little water in it that I sometimes have to add a little more just to keep it damp while painting because it dries out so fast). I'd say about the consistency of melted ice cream. I still can't get it to stick to gold. I'm mixing in a regular palette rather than shells but I doubt that has much to do with it. I wonder what else could be a factor? What are you using for binder? Tetchubah of Greenlake, Caid ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 00:22:20 EDT From: Aralyn67@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Dirty Tricks In a message dated 98-07-20 01:58:33 EDT, mlegge@dph.uwa.edu.au writes: > > Another alternative stencil material are accetate sheets used as covers for > "comb" or spiral bound lecture notes. I got an A4 sheet from a printers for > $0.75 Australian. > The quilters stencil stuff is acetate I think. Aralyn. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 22:29:39 -0600 From: Holly and Jake Gassel Subject: Re: [scribes]: Homestudy courses in Calligraphy??? John M. Nielsen wrote: > > Are there such things as home-study courses in Calligraphy by recognized > and qualified calligraphers? > > Teaching yourself leaves a lot to be desired as you may not even recognize > the errors you are making. A qualified teacher setting assignments and > offering a critique of the lesson would be great for those of us who find > it hard to attend classes. > > Thanks for any information. > > Anna WEll....hmmm. Novel idea. Actually, IMO, most stuff I teach is like this--you come for a lesson, then go home and practice A LOT!!! The Drogin book is the same way, I guess. Ms. Aidan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 00:51:20 EDT From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Oil on Gold In a message dated 98-07-20 18:43:57 EDT, randyaf@provide.net writes: << BTW, I encourage you to use oil on the gilding INSTEAD of any aqueous media. It depends on your gesso, but if your gesso uses water to initially adhere the gold leaf, you are going to have a tendancy to wash off god when you brush on a water based paint. Oil will not have that problem. Also, since the oil goes on metal and not the paper, and there is a layer of gesso beneath the gold, there should be a minimal problem with oil creeping into the page fibers. That is, if you stay within the lines and dont get sloppy. Ranthulfr >> I sent the info off after you sent your info off, but for the record, the primary binders in this case are garlic juice anfd egg tempera which I suggested for it's translucence and its binding properties just another view- JimBear ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #177 *****************************