Making a Manuscript

I'm going to be posting daily for a little while until I can really catch everyone up with where I'm at right now in detail.
There were posts related to what I was doing during that long stretch of silence that I didn't publish which will now have to wait until after I tell you what I've been doing recently. That makes the posting a little out of chronological order, but if I published those other posts first and waited to tell you about what I've been doing recently, it would all be old news. Right? Right. So here we go.

Cover of the Passio Sanctorum Martyrum Decem Milium.

Manuscripts and codexes were the first books to be made before more advanced methods of bookmaking and binding were developed. Printing presses had not yet been invented, so every page of every book made during these times was hand-lettered and all the illustrations were one-of-a-kind. The more decorative of these are often referred to as illuminated manuscripts. Illumination of the page wasn't limited to gold leaf embellishments. They include decorative borders, stylized "drop-cap" initials, which are the large letters that usually start the text or a portion of it, and individual scenes that sometimes but not always relate directly to the text, which are called miniatures.

(click on the pictures to view full-size) 

Pages from a Book of Hours, Les Enluminures (1490), and the Serat Jayalengkara Wulang (1803), a Javanese manuscript.

No matter what their background was, these different groups of people had a desire to transcribe their thoughts to pages to be passed around. From the very beginning, bookmaking has been about the transfer of knowledge and ideas. It really is a powerful thing.
A Book of Hours, as pictured above on the left, was a type of manuscript. They were prayer books for Christians containing different prayers to say throughout the hours of the day, hence the name.

Pages from The Book of Wonders of the Age (17ᵀᴴ/18ᵀᴴ century) and the Book of Kells (c. 800).

One of the projects I was working on while I wasn't writing posts was the making of multiple manuscript pages, each in a different style from a different time period. It was for my History of Graphic Design class. I still wasn't finished when I turned them in. The class ended, and even an extension went by without any of them being completely finished. What work I had done received a B that was much appreciated, but I wasn't about to leave them unfinished. They still need a little work, but not very much.

I had already planned on using them after the class. While staying true to the style of each culture, I wanted to make an original image that I could use later and meant something beyond conveying a likable picture. Some of the pages contain more meaning than others. The ones that do not are more direct, or just meant to convey the style. A lot of reference images were used as inspiration throughout the process, but the overall image and text are all me.

I figured watercolors would be the best choice of medium since it's relatively close in consistency to tempera paint which was traditionally used. They're also very forgiving. You can remove paint you've already laid down just by lifting it with some water and a paper towel.
I used bristol board to paint on, and that was not the best choice to pair with watercolors. I figured since it was a kind of card stock it would hold up better to water absorption. It ended up warping and bending immediately after I stained each page, but I had bought an entire pad of bristol board just for this project, and I already had the idea laid out, so I went through with it anyway. I figured I could mount each page to some kind of heavier board with some adhesive to keep them permanently flat.

Classical (Greek/Roman)

Celtic

Caroline Graphic Renewal

Spanish Pictorial Expressionism

Gothic

Judaic

Islamic

Late Medieval

Now that the class is over, I've decided the collection of pieces are going to be my next series as an artist. I say "next" because I've already started a different series you'll learn more about later, but I'm farther along in this one since it was a class assignment, so this will be technically be my first. There are not enough pages to make a book, and the continuous style and language change would make it a difficult read, but they would look nice framed.

As soon as each of the pages are finished, they're going to be mounted on and matted with board, then mounted again on reclaimed wood I picked up from downtown. I'll show you some of the boards and pictures from that trip tomorrow.

I'll be translating the Islamic and Judaic pages for you guys further down the line. There's also some distinct differences that set some of my pages apart from others made by the culture at that time that I'll also be explaining in the same post, so don't miss out!

Spring Studies

     As mentioned in the last post, I'm a student at Henry Ford College. Until recently I had been taking classes sporadically in order to work and come up with some kind of plan. I've had a vague idea, but I needed to come up with something more precise. To make up for lost time, I've registered for two spring classes. Anthropology is the one I was most excited for, and it's even more interesting than I previously figured.

     In short, anthropology can be described as the study of humans and their ancestors at any given time or place. It's a broad field made up of four different disciplines, each specializing in a different aspect of humankind and the lives they led. They include archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology. I'm sure it doesn't sound all that exciting if you don't already have an interest in learning about other cultures, but each field of study plays a considerably big part in helping and figuring out how people and their ancestors relate to and understand each other. 

     Part of the work I hope to go on to do is reconstructive illustration, which involves paleontology and physical anthropology, also known as paleoanthropology. The information, theories, and hypotheses they report give me and other reconstructive artists the information we need to rebuild an ancient place, person, or animal in a realistic two- or three-dimensional format. Cultural anthropology can play a role as well in helping to envision ancient peoples and ancestors when the direct, empirical information being used is limited.
     This means a lot of what the class has to offer is relevant and can be used, which has given me added incentive to study.  

The two books for my course and some class notes. The one opened is Anthropology: The Human Challenge.
Reconstructing the hominin is French sculptor Élisabeth Daynès.

Perspectives of a Homo erectus skull: my version and the book's. Still a work in progress.

Yawalapiti tribe members playing sacred trumpets - from an image in Anthropology: The Human Challenge. 

     Another reason I'm excited to learn more on the subject is because I'd like to do something similar to the work of anthropological and ethnographic field researchers. That would be traveling to a foreign area to learn what I can from whatever group of people resides there. I wouldn't mind if it was part of a research project or not. I would go just to see what I can learn for myself, even if there was no other funding available.
     I've come across some of the work of some photographers who do this, and I'm not sure how they go about it, but I'm determined to find a way.

Examples of some of the field work from Applying Anthropology.
(click the image to view in full size)

     An example of this career practice is one of today's most notable photographers, Steve McCurry. If the name isn't familiar, I'm sure his photographs Afghan Girl and Red Boy will refresh your memory (both were used by National Geographic). He started as a  freelancer, moving to India, and continued onward to be the first to photographically report on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Through the years he has covered major conflicts, cultural identities, and living conditions in other parts of the world.
     It might not seem like there's much of a point if there's already people out there photographing these kinds of scenes. I personally don't think visual progress and expression should end at photography. It's a different kind of process. Photographers report and show you what they've seen. I create what I've seen, and in doing so I make it unique from the subject as well as displaying the subject as I see it. Making an image from scratch also provides for certain freedoms in the creative process that photography lacks. The production requires very simple tools, which means change can be made without using different equipment and can be done with relative ease.

Steve McCurry, Cobblers, Bombay, India, 1996

     In some situations cameras are seen as intrusive or disruptive, not just by some native cultural groups, but here in the West as well. Cameras are generally not allowed inside the courtrooms of federal cases, for video or photography. We do, however, have sketch artists that record the events at these trials. If a major federal case makes the news, they may show a sketch or two from the collection.
     In terms of reconstruction illustration, there's only so much photography can do. Photographs can be used as reference images and even a beginning step if the task is reconstructing an area, but somewhere in the process drawing has to take place either on the computer or using tangible media.
     Besides being an adventure in itself, one of the things that draws me the most to the idea of traveling to such different places is most likely finding new and interesting subject matter for direct observation and plein air pieces. I'll draw almost anything, anywhere, at any time, but with so many different possibilities out there, it would be crazy to not try as many places as I can.
     Money is about the only reason I haven't started traveling around already. It probably doesn't cost too much to go to some of these out-the-way places, but at the moment just about every dime I get is put back into my education or art.
When the time is right, my more mobile days will start.