Prioribus operibus

In the first post I promised that I would upload some of my previous works.  I was conflicted about doing this initially as some of the work contains errors and others I would do differently/better now.  However it's good to see where I was and where I am now.  So I'll post in the order (ish) of completion.

Altar Cards

Actually not my first piece of work completed, but it was the first serious work I started.



Consisting of five individual sheets (three for the centre piece) of paper cut to size, the idea was if a mistake was made I would not lose the entire project.  The gold here is artificial, I had not yet found a place that sold gold leaf at a reasonable price.  Overall I am happy with these (except the mistake, see if you can spot it).  I would like to remake them, however it took a considerable amount of time to prepare and copy out.  Even longer still to find a suitable frame. 

Ave Maria

This is the first work completed but second undertaken.  I needed a break from the altar cards but more importantly I had discovered a reasonably prices supplier of 24ct gold leaf.

Decided to be a little more ambitious with the illumination on this one, and slightly more artistic with the lettering.  I will more than likely reproduce this, however next time I will make the text more uniform and central along the bottom.  I have made two of these already, and I've not managed to hold onto them for long.  I suspect I will need to make the third in secret if I hope to keep it for myself.

St Jude

One day a lovely statue of St Jude arrived in the Parish, it was agreed that a prayer to St Jude should be made to go with it. 

Overall I quite like this one, I think if I was to redo this though I would really clean up the lines and add more detail to the boarders.  This was the first attempt at a raised 3D illumination.  The M was built up over three days to form a 3D shape for the gold to sit on.  The idea is to create a shadow effect to make the letter stand out even more that it would on a flat surface.

 

I've yet to try this method again due to the time required.  A total of three days was needed just to reach this stage.  That is not including writing and painting the card.  The effect is worth the time taken though.

 

First "commission" of sorts

 

About a year ago I decided to produce a piece that would be shipped off to the states to a friend of mine.  I cannot share the actual text of the sheet, as it is from a novel that she is writing.  However I can show the illumination.  This was my first use of white gold leaf in any of my work.  This was a strange project as it was my first production where I did not choose the colours or the leaf to be used.  It was created to set specifications given to me, however I did take certain artistic licence and slipped a little gold in there.

 

 

 

There were other works here and there, but mostly just copying texts as practice in learning fonts. 

 

Valete.