Black hours commission, September 2020

The "Black Hours" refers to manuscripts created during a narrow time period, around 1470-1480 if I remember right, that were the product of a short-lived fad to show off both how pious you were and also how filthy rich. The pages were black vellum, which is where they get their name, and the "ink" used to write on them was silver and gold. There are only seven surviving examples of Black Hours manuscripts (only really three online that I could find), because the different options for turning the pages black would either cause the page to eventually disintegrate, or would cause the paint to flake off. All the surviving Black Hours pages are damaged to some degree or another; one book, the Sforza Black Hours, was so fragile that in order to preserve it at all, conservators had to completely dismantle the book and seal each page between sheets of glass.

But boy are they still pretty to look at. Here's a link to a seller of facsimile manuscripts, with some great zoomable images for study. The modern eye finds them just as striking now as they no doubt were six hundred years ago, and they make for a popular topic when I teach the class on the painting technique, as well as very popular commission requests.

Here's one I completed in September. The client wanted a quote from Walt Whitman: "Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you."

As always, the calligraphy goes first, followed by sketching the layout. I followed the exemplar pretty closely; it's a very "busy" style in the border and I tend to shy away and leave things too open if left to my own devices.

I've had several people ask if I'm using a special pencil to sketch my design, but as it turns out, plain old graphite is shiny enough that it shows up just fine on black paper! That's a regular, standard-issue, office supply mechanical pencil there, the kind you can buy in a pack of ten. I'm not pressing hard, I'm not using a special lead, I'm just sketching and it shows up just fine.

Here are a couple of closeup shots for the details that the client wanted me to include. She really likes nature, nymphs, and fairies, and also thought that a sunburst would be a perfect thing to include since the quote references sunshine.

There's a fairy in there, if you can pick it out... its wings are meant to be butterfly wings, but the proportions aren't quite right. I don't end up fixing that until later, in the painting stage.

Can you see the bird and its chicks? I promise it is easier to make out once it's colored in.

Finally it was time to start the coloring; I always work largest to smallest, and that usually means starting with the silver and gold acanthus leaves.

The nymphs suddenly become a lot easier to spot!

After silver comes gold:

I am very, very pleased with how that sunburst came out. Shading with a metallic color is hard, because you can't add white or anything else to lighten its intensity. You have to thin it down with water instead, and then let the paint build in opacity as you layer it, while trying not to over-wet the paper or have blobby, imprecise paint marks. It's more of a watercolor technique, I think, than a gouache technique (gouaches are meant to be opaque, not translucent).

After that, it was time for the regular colors:

One reason I enjoy the scribal arts so much is because every piece so far has been a learning experience. I haven't gotten bored with repetition very often at all in the past twenty years. That little bunny rabbit there? Totally new techniques for me with mixing paint (I am lazy, and prefer to just use straight colors without having to blend anything) and shading.

Of course, into every piece a little "eh" must fall, so here is the fairy that didn't turn out quite right:

The wings aren't proportioned quite right and the decoration is.... not that great. I manage to fix the wing proportions a little farther along, but for now let's distract ourselves with this lovely bird in its nest, instead.

A neat feature of this particular Black Hours book was that they included mini-scenes in the margins of the page, in little roundels at the side and bottom. The bottom one, as you saw, includes that sunburst. Here is the side:

You know how when you're a kid you tend to draw the same horse over and over, or the same cat, or whatever? I tend to draw the same tree almost all the time, so this one wasn't too difficult. I especially like how the black background is visible through the leaves.

Also, I told you I'd finally do something about that fairy's wing proportions...

The colors are still... not that great, in my opinion, but at least the wings no longer look like they were put on upside down.

So here we are so far:

The final step for each of these was to add delicate silver and gold highlights to them, to help tie them to the rest of the border. Otherwise, the duller "plain" colors might look like holes in the overall shiny effect.

I especially like how the silver brings out the contrast on the bird's darker blue and purple tones, which I'd feared might get lost against the black background.

Now that I've gotten the difficult stuff out of the way, it's time to tackle the flowers, fruit, and leaves throughout the border. This is just a matter of pulling out some single colors and not having to blend anything, and it goes surprisingly quickly.

Blue and white were first; I could have started with any color, really, and have in the past, but this time I was in the mood for blue and white:

Then it was time for red and green:

So the overall effect looks like this. The border is really starting to come together!

And yet, still not finished. Now that the base colors have been added, they will also get the silver and gold highlight treatment. Then after that, we lay in all the stems and tendrils in gold and silver, then fill in any previously unnoticed gaps or open spaces with squiggles and starbursts (or squashed spiders, depending what you want to call them). Click the image below, and if you're on a desktop or laptop, it should open in a separate window, where you can click again to zoom in on it.

Here are a few closeups where you can see what I'm talking about with the background fills, the squiggles and starbursts. There's also a hidden honeybee, if you look closely.

The rabbit's gold highlights turned out great, and there's another honeybee in this picture. The piece has a total of four hidden bees, just for fun.

And the unveiling, the finished piece with all my pencil marks erased. The only thing I did after this was add my signature on the bottom, and mail it to the client, who tells me she absolutely loves it.

I am thrilled to report that my commissions queue is actually growing! After this piece, which was completed in September, I did another Black Hours, which I'll post about in another week or so, that was done in October. For a change of pace, I'm currently working on a piece modeled after manuscripts from the 1100s, so, much earlier and visually different from this style, and then after that I'll be replacing someone's old diploma that got wet and went moldy.

Every piece is a new learning experience.