Sticky gesso

The first post in the new year!

The gesso I wrote about last time sticks well; so well that little bits of the cover sheets stuck to it.

Today, Bertrik is gilding the rest of the gesso that we allready applied and trying to dissolve the leftover gesso and use it on a final capital.

I'm continuing the writing, the final page of 1988.

Do next time: write lots of read capitals. Gild page 1993 - 4 so we can finish writing 1993.

Adding gesso

After all the writing I did in the past weeks, there are now several capitals that will need to be gilded, and we found some pages with gesso missing, so we'll be adding gesso to those pages.

Bertrik is making some sugar gesso with dissolved gum arabic as a base, adding about 1 part ground kandijsuiker (sugar cristals) to 3 parts gum arabic.

Illuminations for each year:

Introduction - map
1987 - court
1988 - a flood
1989 - Group portret 10 year celebration
1990 - Maypoledance
1991 - Two knights fighting
1992 - Group portret Drei Eichen
1993 -
1994 - beugelen
1995 - dancers
1996 - double wars (trebouchet)

Saturday Afternoon

After a trying morning I setlled down at the table with the kids. They are drawing with dip pens, using diluted paint from a mussel shell, and I wrote a bunch of red capitals for page 89-4, 93-2 and 93-3.

It turns out we already marked those pages as done, so I don't get the satisfaction of marking something off the list, but no matter, we're having a peaceful moment, which is worth a lot, and also, it's a lot of fun to see them enjoying themselves with this stuff.

Next I want to try and finish the text for 1988, 1990 and 1992, all of which are mostly gilded. Page 1993 - 4 should be gilded before I write that page.

In between cooking a wonderful salad ("Sinterklaassalade"  van Keet Smakelijk) and miserable pancakes I managed to fix the text for 1988, 1990 and the introduction. Yay! Got to cross off some stuff from the list after all...

Next time we get together to work on the book we should look at the extra text I made for 1991, and some of the stuff on the discussion page to see if/where we can fit that in.

Gathering speed

We're slowly getting back into the work on the book. First we spent some time on the planning of an event for next year, and then we made some small steps to get going again.

Bertrik applied some gum arabic to some narrow strips of gesso that the gold wouldn't stick to, and that is working well. It might be a good solution to some of the other bits that we've had trouble with in the past.

I practiced letters, and worked out that I've been writing with a Mitchell nr 5 pen, and that I need to order some spares of those. They are actually wider than the Brause .75 mm, not narrower as I wrote in 2009.

We also determined that page 3 and 4 of 1993 have not been written yet, but we did rewrite the text to fit the two pages that are left (309 words). So in the next few days I can practice some more, and then I can get started on the third page of 1993, and making red capitals on the second page.

Word Count

Below is a list of the chapters of the book, followed by the number of words.

The number of words needed is 675 for a full chapter. The intro is on two pages and needs 375 words.

Intro - 339 (needs 375).
1987 - already written in the book, not counted
1988 - 561
1989 - already written in the book, not counted
1990 - 674
1991 - 484
1992 - 545
1993 - already written in the book, not counted (checken en tabel bijwerken)
1994 - 814, but not final text (parts in Dutch etc.)
1995 - 507
1996 - 602

Tabel

The old progress report seems stuck in time so I can't edit it anymore. Hopefully this version will work.

progres report.

Een tabel die bijhoudt hoe ver we zijn met het maken van het boek.
De inhoud van de cellen geeft aan wanneer dit onderdeel is afgerond.
(x: geeft aan was of voordat we begonnen met dit bij te houden).

pag	text af	goud	geschrvn	illum	borders	white
Titelpagina
1	x
Inleiding
1	12/11
2	12/11			-
jaar 87
1	x	x	x	x
2	x	x	x	-
3	x	x	x	-
4	x	x	x	-	7/12	x
jaar 88
1	12/11	6/12	12/11
2	12/11	1/12	1/12	-
3	12/11	x	1/12	-		x
4	12/11	x	1/12	-	x	x
jaar 89
1	x	x	x	x	x
2	x	-	x	-
3	x	x	x	-
4	x	1/12	8/10	-
jaar 90
1	x	x	12/11		-
2	x	-	1/12	-
3	x			-
4	x	x		-
jaar 91
1	3-12	x	3/12		-
2	3-12	4/12	4/12	-
3	3-12	x	4/12	-		x
4	3-12			-
jaar 92
1	1/12	x	3/12	2/12	-
2	1/12	3/12	3/12	-
3	1/12	11/11	3/12	-
4	1/12	8/10	3/12	-
jaar 93
1	x	x	x		-
2	x	2/12	x	-
3	x	8/10	12/11	-
4	x	11/11	2/12	-
jaar 94
1		x			-
2		-		-
3				-
4				-
jaar 95
1		3/12			-
2		-		-
3				-
4		2/12		-
jaar 96
1		3/12			-
2		-		-
3		2/12		-
4				-

Woorden telling op de reeds geschreven pagina's:

87/1: 133 woorden

87/2: 234 woorden

87/3: 141 woorden

87/4: 138 woorden

89/1: 121 woorden

89/2: 258 woorden

89/3: 162 woorden
92/1: 135

93/1: 122 woorden

93/2: 273 woorden

Geeft gemiddelden:

eerste pagina: 125 woorden

tweede pagina: 250 woorden

derde en vierde pagina: 150 woorden

Waaruit dus volgt dat een gemiddeld jaardocument zo om en nabij: 675 woorden zou moeten bevatten.
Er volgt een tellling op de concept texten.

Later geschreven pagina's woordentelling:

88/1: 106
88/2: 234
88/3: 155
1990/1: 99
90/2: 237 (word count van de computer, tijdens het schrijven best veel woorden geschrapt)