For the past week and a half I've been working on my final project for calligraphy class - even doing some while I at a hotel for GallifreyOne (the Doctor Who convention at LAX) this past weekend. It's a piece of writing with illumination (it will include at least one gold leaf letter). As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of trouble picking out what to write as I didn't want to do a passage from the Bible. What I settled on were lines from Dante's Inferno.
Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my High Artificer;
My maker was Divine Authority,
The Highest Wisdom, and the Primal Love.
Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope, Ye who enter here.
It seems appropriately gothic. My first pass was writing in the original Italian, but I discovered pretty quickly that even in English I have a hard time not missing out letters and even whole words. I've been writing the passage almost every day for the past few days. It's getting better, but the spacing still feels rough.
Okay the first image is really my second version, but I can't find the first one (I may have forgotten to photograph it). Mostly what I was trying to do here, in addition to practicing the letters (the .1 1/2 Brause nib still feels quite small), was figure out if the passage was about the right length. After looking at it, my teacher made a few suggestions and said I needed to let go of the verse length / line issue and try and make the passage (as much as possible) a block of text. Then began the search for a letter "T" to pencil copy and illuminate.
The next one is a mock-up with a tracing of a letter "T" added and an attempt (bad attempt) to pencil in the Lombardic capitals. What I realized was I couldn't pencil the Lombardic capitals very well. So I printed out some text in the right size to try and figure out how many would fit and then got to work on the spacing. I decided to do a smaller illumination on the bottom "A" to add emphasis to the final "Abandon..." line. On my teacher's advice, I made the "A" smaller.
Tonight I'm going to try and redo the sheet once again and trace out the illuminated letters and Lombardic capitals. I've also got a border to try and draw. I find the idea of doing the drawing, gilding and painting even scarier than the lettering.
My vellum sheet looks so lovely and perfect. The idea of starting to mark it is frightening.
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