Deer's Done

And here's the completed Celtic deers. Instructions call for using gouache but I opted for watercolor. Something like six hours.

I have read about pigments available in the past. What did Celtic artists work with? In spirit, I tried working with earth colors--Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber. But, I did use dabs of Winsor Violet and Cerulean Blue. Today I was reading about limited palettes, in particular the Velasquez, so I tried to make my purple with Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue but only got to a nice brown. I've not done much with watercolor so there's plenty to learn about color mixing. Where I had fun and surprise was in simply diluting a paint. I found wonderful colors trapped within a dark pigment.

Celtic Deer

It's common to find Celtic critters biting, even themselves. This is from an example in The Illuminated Alphabet. (Actual size is about 4.5 inches.)

My First Celtic

It's a wrap! :-) Around seven hours for the whole job. This was from a tracing and I feel that I never really grasped the flow of the piece before starting, leaving it a bit wobbly. All in all, a fine exercise--I learned a lot here.

This image is from the camera, showing off some sparkle. I'm thinking about the next exercise... Maybe a border this time...

The Bible of Illuminated Letters

This book by Margaret Morgan is totally awesome. The first third of this spiral-bound wonder is all about tools and techniques. Chapter 3 (150 pages!), the Alphabet Directory, categorizes illuminations into style and period--Celtic, Ottonian, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance: White Vine, and Renaissance: Neo-Classical. Now, this is all really a mouthful, never mind a mindful, for me.

So, what can I do but take this all poco a poco? My dear friend's thought on how to eat an elephant comes to mind here. I do want to know about all these various styles... Perhaps I can mix things up a bit into a contemporary kind of thing (gorgeous examples in Chapter 4). But for starters, I will try some traditional designs with what's on hand--watercolor, colored pencil, pen and ink, a bit of gold gouache. I'll leave out the gesso and gilding for now, but be ready. I could spring these out at any moment! :-)

Regarding my before and after drawings for the Cornell webinar, here is the pair I'm thinking of going with: