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!

Bearded

So much for keeping it weekly. I have literally grown a long beard in the amount of time it has taken for me to get back to this.
That's pretty sad (also pretty funny), but the beard is cool. If you're someone I went to high school with or had as a teacher at that time: I told you it was going to happen.

It shows off my Irish.  

The idea for growing a beard came from multiple sources, but you'll have to stay tuned to learn more about the main inspiration.

I haven't been entirely useless in my time away, which you've seen if you've been following the work I've been posting to Instagram (@d.sohoza). My posting on there isn't even as consistent as I'd like, so really there's a lot more work that you haven't seen.
I swear, in my heart, I'm trying to work up to making an improvement in my consistency. It bothers me, it really does. It's also hard to stay focused when you lose hope a lot, which is another thing I have to work on. There's that quote about being a bunch of flaws stitched together with good intentions that comes to mind...

Anyway, here's a quick look at some of the things I've been working on…
(At this stage they're all works in progress besides the two matted pieces.)

A History of Graphic Design class project, making eight different manuscript pages in eight different styles from various time periods. 

I'm no stranger to watercolors, but it has been a long while since I've used them, so my preconceived idea of how fast I could finish these far exceeded reality.

A two-piece, unnamed miniseries based on a related grouping of five objects. My decided theme was arson. The first piece is a still life made up of cross-contour lines and a bit of stippling. The second piece had to incorporate at least some of the objects from the first in an imaginative way.

This design that I made in Photoshop (I still need to teach myself Illustrator) is one of three. Each of them using the same magazine ad as reference, but portrayed in different design styles. This one is in the Vienna Secession style.

The Rose Cones series. One still life from one perspective drawn in three different mediums in three different styles: pencil contours, values in red and black ink, and gestures in charcoal and conté. Realistically drawing a pine cone exactly how you see it is more challenging than I would have guessed.  

A drawing class assignment to construct an abstract image using only triangles, squares, and rectangles. We had to use changes in value to define the shapes' edges.

If you know me, you know I'm not a big fan of abstract, so it had to resemble something. I'm calling it Approaching Destiny.

Childhood, conté 18x24"

Water & Fire, 16½ x 22½"

I had two still life pieces entered into the LAND's 2016 art contest and conference, Pathways. I didn't win anything and wasn't able to go, but it was a cool opportunity for my art anyway.

Realistically drawing a still life of gourds using cross-contour lines. I also decided to step up my fold game for this one.  

Another cross-contour drawing, but this time, of an animal. This is a viscacha, a relative of the chinchilla. It will be the first piece I get back to work on after the manuscript pages are completed.

…as well as some others that we can talk about later.

And now that you're filled in, we'll get back to your regularly scheduled program.
I hope you'll be back to read and see more.