two more ... but still late !

here are my T and my P for the medieval alphabet.

and my wishes for all the best for all of you in this new year 2013.

I'm late BUT I'll finish this alphabet before the end of this month, I promiss !

and thanks a lot to Fiona and all of you for all the wonderful letters and realisations I saw last year

and, I'm sure, I'll see this year !

4 more letters

I'm so in a hurry and not sure I'll finish this year ! anyway here are K, M, Q and R :

please forgive the very poor quality of the pictures !

next 5

I'm a bit late but I just notice that I'm half the way of this alphabet so it's not so bad !
here are E, F,O, U and X

it's really fun for me to look in my books and find the letters I prefer and then paint them. I'm not sure of how I'll manage to put them all together but ... some months more to think of it ! and that's a good use of all the little bits of parchment I kept just in case ... now is the case !

next four

it was SO HOT the two last weeks I could'nt even paint ! but finally, here are the next four letters : G, L, H and A

what do you think of my little Scottish monkey ? I'm not really satisfied with the L and I think I'll do it again at the end (if time is on my side !)

All I've seen up to now from all your new alphabets is so original, this will be a great ALAW year !

b and d

here is a B from a 12th century antiphonarium :

and the d is from the famous book of Kells (9th c.)

you can see that the parchment for the last one is a bit more tough and not so easy to paint on !

Home made colors : that means that the group of illuminators I'm working in prepare all the colors they use from plants, minerals, ... mixed with arabic gum and sugar and some other things, it depends of the rough material. then the product is put in little shelves to dry and we can use them just adding water with the brush (very tiny brush : 3/0 to 1 max, repique brushes). I have some plants in my garden I'm using for that.

for the D, I used malachite green, lapis lazuli blue, orpiment yellow and purple.

next ones soon ...

Medieval alphabet

As I told you in my presentation, I'm fond of historical letters, manuscripts and illuminated letters and pages.

So, here are my first two letters of my second alphabet, which are painted on pieces of parchment with home made colors. Each letter will be "inhabited" and are inspired by actual letters from manuscripts.

C is from a XIIe century manuscript and N from a late XVe.
I hope you will enjoy them, I'm having fun painting them !