I still learned a lot, though. For starters, my shading technique when I first started out did not give me the results I wanted, at all. My acanthus leaves looked okay, but the brush strokes were much too robust on the figure of a mermaid in the border, giving her what looked like a hairy chest.
Special thanks to phenomenal scribe Mark Calderwood for taking the time to chat with me, from Australia at odd hours, to teach me how to solve the problem. I had to completely scrape off this version of the mermaid and start over, with this as the result:
Obviously she still needs detail work at this point, but thinning the paint and letting it build up in opacity, as well as using much smaller brush strokes, gave me much better results than trying to shade everything with the paint at full strength.
I also learned the value of pouncing my vellum to remove excess oils from handling, which were causing the paint to bead as the oils resisted it (as in the pic below). It was amazing the difference a little gum sandarac made when I ran into trouble... and the difference would have been even better if I had pounced before I even started. Lesson learned!
So without further ado, here come the progress photos...
Text mockup. I always do a mockup (well, almost always) to make sure the text will fit!
Testing the Coliro silver on a scrap. It works great!
The finished text block in silver and gold, and the main elements of the border penciled in.
Here and below, some close up shots of the various initials and capitals.
Another mer-person in the border, this time carrying a sword and wearing armor. Not sure how that helps him swim, but okay.
Another figure, riding a rabbit like beast. This one was also supposed to be shaded, but the vellum was resisting the paint badly enough that I had to add ox gall to it, and that erased all distinction in my brush strokes.
The border with most of the silver laid in. At this point, I was discouraged enough about the hairy chested mermaid that I procrastinated taking any further steps for about two weeks.
It's amazing how the border starts to come together with just the acanthus leaves added in. These types of borders actually go pretty quickly once they're sketched out. It's just painting in the flowers and leaves, shading, and then connecting everything with stems. After that, you fill in any empty spaces that are remaining with tendrils and other fiddly bits.
The blue and brown added, with the beginning of red. The mer-soldier's armor looks bronze; it's actually brown highlighted with gold. (Thanks to Mark Calderwood again for that tip.)
I don't often paint with brown, actually. To be honest, I rarely mix colors at all. So I'm happy with how this came out, especially on the rabbit beast. It's really more of a dark orange, made with yellow ochre and a warm red.
The mermaid with more details added. Around her, you can see where the blue gave me trouble.
Red and green complete. Most of the area is filled in and now it's time to shade or highlight things with silver and gold, then play "connect the dots" with stems and vines.
Ironically, in period many black hours didn't survive because the paint flaked off. I used a different green paint this time around, and it didn't want to stick. It dried, then cracked and tried to come off in several places.
The silver has a tendency to glare under my lighting, so I've been taking pictures with the mermaid in shadow to let more detail come through.
The award is going to a man who makes parchment. I spoke with him and got a general idea of what kind of clothing he likes to wear, then stuck him in front of a parchmenter's frame. He's holding a curved knife called a lunellum to scrape the hide to an even thickness.
Here we are with gold highlights added to the red and brown.
Adding the silver highlights. I really like the before and after effect here in these flowers.
And once again, here is the finished piece. The empty roundels in the border will be filled with wax seals once the scroll is delivered.
Again, using shadows to help show off details that would otherwise be obscured by the glare of the overhead lights.
Of the two mer-people, I think I like the soldier's tail better.
I'm not entirely sure the figure here needed as much silver added as I gave him, by he doesn't look bad, so I guess it's okay.
Hidden bird says hello.
And that's it! As always, my thanks go to everyone who has offered a kind word, either here or on Facebook, or elsewhere. I really appreciate the encouragement.
Cheers!
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