Paints used

 For the borders we used:

Green - terra verde - zinc white nr 2 (Bertrik made a series of shells starting with pure terra verde and adding zinc white with little bits at a time. So this is the shell with two little bits of white added. Very scientific :)).

Blue - ultramarine

Red - permanent red

For the black outlines and squiggles I'm using a Staedtler pigment liner 0.1, after experimenting a bit with metal pens.

For the gold we're using the most simple gesso made with gum arabic with icing sugar (poedersuiker) and a little red bolus pigment.

Page two and other progress

 So, what did we get done this week:

- Bertrik made a great many new shells of fresh paint in different colors.

- we realised that in some years page two had some decoration between the columns, but not in others. We got together one afternoon and evening, and Bertrik gilded all the hearts, and I did the penwork. All years are done now! I'm adding some pictures showing the practice pieces, order of drawing the little flower and the result on the pages.

- worked on the texts, there is a document with the correct number of words for every year now, Bertrik is doing a final check.

- did some greenwork on pages with leaves. Comparing with the penwork I did on the middle columns for page 2, I think in the future I will draw the little green leaves with pen first, and then fill them in with paint, not the other way around...

- did some checks with different nibs. I couldn't figure out why the writing with my Mitchell nr 5 didn't look right, until I checked it by daylight, and it turns out that I was using a nr 4. Well, that cleared up that mystery...

Penwork and leaves

Yesterday I did the first green leaves and serious penwork, and I'm quite content with the first try. I did realize when I started drawing the black lines around the green leaves that they are shaped up side down, with the pointed bit at the end of the leave instead of the start, so that will take a bit of practice. The line of penned flowers on the left side of the right hand page turned out rather well I think.

I used the terra verde paint, and it worked better than expected, probably because these are just small shapes, and maybe also because the paint is fairly fresh (made last week).

Hopefully I will be able to finish the penwork next week, and then we'll have reached a milestone, the first page that is completely finished! Wow.

Painting grass and trees

Laura and Bertrik came over and we worked on painting the natural background in the illumination for 1989. I went back to look for better examples to paint from, and found the Livre de la chasse (c. 1480). We had a 2001 calendar with reproductions from this book in our bookcase, still in plastic, and now we have 12 wonderful reproductions to paint from. Suddenly the puzzle of how to paint the background fell into place.

Laura painted some tests while Bertrik made lots of terra verde paint, adding more black pigment after each batch (4 in total?). This gives a color that compares well to the background in the reproductions. The very dark green in the original also makes sense, since the terra verde is very difficult to work with (sort of slimy and blobby and not very opaque), and adding the black pigment makes it easier.

I toiled on the gold, trying to repair some letters that had partially stuck before. We had added more gesso to the parts that weren't covered, and I tried to put gold on them, but wasn't very succesful. When I tested the new layer of gesso earlier it seemed to work ok, so I was baffled and annoyed. After Laura left I got to fill in the last bits of dark green, so I also got to share in the succes of the evening...

Making green paint to match the Rijmbijbel page. In the pigment,

Rijmbijbel can be found here: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/exposities/rijmbijbel/indexNew.php#

kalkgroen - chalk green - lego green
smaragd groen - emerald green - nearly the same lego green.
Are these colors part of the medieval palette?

Terra verde with marmble polish and gum arabic. Previously made terra verde paint turned out kind of slimy. We're hoping to make it better by adding marble polish. It seems that it is still a bit slimy, but more opaque than the versions we made before.