Review: Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy, by Margaret Shepherd Sunday, Oct 19 2008

This is not a straightforward review–I am reviewing this book strictly in terms of its usefulness as a reference for historical calligraphers. It’s set up for you to work through with an alphabet every day and a project a week, but I’m ignoring that and looking at it solely as an alphabet modelbook.

Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy
Margaret Shepherd
Penguin, 1986, 112 pp.

This book provides little specific instruction for the individual alphabets, so I would not recommend it for a beginner. Of the 365 alphabets, most are modern or whimsical, but some are historical, historically based, or suitable as faux or pseudoscripts for SCA purposes (faux Chinese, faux Arabic, etc.).

Roman – A straightforward Roman capital hand.
Celtic Any Case – Based on Uncial, but not very historical; I wouldn’t use it.
Namor – Roman mirror writing.
Lower Kingdom – A nice faux Chinese script.
Coiltic – “A fanciful modern invented style, based on 8th-century coiled Celtic.” I don’t know enough about Celtic to comment on this, but it might be a good starting point.
Swash Capitals – Simple swash capitals suitable for use with Italic hands.
Split Swash – Wouldn’t be out of place for the Renaissance.
Basic Gothic – A fairly generic Gothic hand; not glaringly modern, but there are better ones.
Super Celtic – Stretched letters for filling the ends of lines. “Many of these letters come from the Book of Kells.”
Vivaldi – Decorative Italic-based capitals; not historical but would work as capitals with an historical Italic hand.
Swash Italic – A simple swash hand, not extremely historical but a good starting point.
Backward Italic – A back-slanting Italic hand “based on a 16th-century Italian style by Tagliente.”
Turned Celtic – A more historical Uncial-inspired hand.
Arched Italic – Looks a bit like a cross between Batarde and Italic; not historical to my knowledge but looks like something Renaissance calligraphers might have played with.
Caroling – VERY loosely based on Caroline Minuscule; please don’t use this.
Lag B’omer – A faux Hebew script
Jerusalem – A more obviously English faux Hebrew script.
Fraktur – A 16th century German Gothic hand.
Fraktur Capitals – For use with Fraktur.
Concave Gothic and Concave Scroll – A generic modern Gothic hand.
Half-Round Gothic – Somewhat similar to Early Gothic.
Rustica – “A 5th-century rendition of a 1st-century Roman.”
Split Swash – A nice swash capital alphabet for a split pen.
Gothic Caps – Generic Gothic capitals.
Endless – Capital letters made up of continuous lines. Not historical, but would work as a substitute for simple cadels or Italic swash capitals.
Dürer Caps – “Copies of 15th-century German woodcuts.”
Antiquarr – “A 16th-century design by Ludovico Arrighi.” Lowercase, missing j, v, and w.
Magdalene – Capitals “adapted from a 15th-century copy book.”
Frills – “16th-century capitals by Arrighi.” Simple cadels, no j, u, or w.
Florentine – “16th-century Italian style” with decorative descenders.
Russian – A faux Cyrillic hand, but based on modern Russian–not very similar to historical Cyrillic hands.
Delhight – A faux Sanskrit hand.
Upper Kingdom – Another faux Chinese hand. Some of the letters are real Chinese characters or partial ones, so I would be careful using this.
Shivered – A very decorative Gothic hand–similar to some in 16th century modelbook Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta.
Twinings – A generic Gothic hand with a variety of suggested decorative ascenders, some period, some not. Use with care.
Benedictus – “14th-century letters” with decorative ascenders.
Versals – Simple initial letters.
Gothic Initials – A not very exciting set of generic Gothic capitals.
Embellished Gothic – “Some of these ornaments came from medieval manuscripts; others are modern inventions.” A nice hand.

Please note that these assessments are all mine, and I’m not extremely familiar with all the Gothic hands. Overall, however, I think this book has enough historical or near-historical hands to be useful for the SCA calligrapher, and Lower Kingdom and Upper Kingdom are the best faux Chinese scripts I’ve seen so far.

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A Basic Historical Calligraphy and Illumination Library Wednesday, May 14 2008

Calligraphy (from Greek κάλλος kallos “beauty” + γραφή graphẽ “writing”): The art of writing.

Illumination: Decorations for text, in the strictest definition, gold or silver. These may include decorated letters, margins, miniature paintings, etc.

These are the books I have found most useful for historical calligraphic hands, quill-cutting, information on leafing and historical materials, etc. I haven’t yet found a really good how-to for historical illumination–recommendations welcome.

Harris, David. The Art of Calligraphy: a practical guide to the skills and techniques. Dorling Kindersley: New York (1995), 128 pp.

Includes how to cut quill and reed pens, script timeline, script reference chart, historical background, and instructions for the following hands:

Rustic Capitals (Roman Rustic), Square Capitals, Imperial Capitals (Roman), Uncial, Artifical Uncial (Late Uncial), Insular Majuscule, Insular Minuscule, Caroline Minuscule (Carolingian), Foundational (a post-Renaissance), Early Gothic (Late Carolingian, Carolingian Gothic), Gothic Textura Quadrata, Gothic Textura Prescisus, Gothic Capitals and Versals, Lombardic Capitals, Bastard Secretary (Elizabethan Secretary), Bâtarde, Fraktur, Schwabacher, Bastard Capitals, Cadels, Rotunda, Rotunda Capitals, Humanist Minuscule, Italic, Humanist and Italic Capitals, Italic Swash Capitals, Copperplate and Copperplate Capitals (post-Renaissance)

The two weaknesses of the book are 1) It does not discuss inks, and 2) it presents Secretary as a semi-formal bookhand, and does not show any examples of the commonly used Secretary script used by the Elizabethans for everyday writing, such as letters. Most surviving examples of Secretary are considerably less formal and consistent than bookhands.

This is a fantastic book and I would recommend it over Drogin’s Medieval Calligraphy for the beginner. It also has the advantage in presenting Renaissance hands, and in being full-color, so the numerous examples of manuscripts are easier to read and more inspirational.

Drogin, Marc. Medieval Calligraphy. Dover: New York (1980), 198 pp.

This is the classic reference text for medieval calligraphy. It presents all of the major medieval hands, along with historical background and some minimal discussion of technique and materials. It is in black-and-white, so doesn’t really inspire illumination, but presents a variety of examples of the hands so the reader can see the historical variance. The hands covered are:

Roman Rustic (Rustic Capitals), Uncial, Artificial Uncial (Late Uncial), Roman Half-Uncial, Insular Majuscule, Insular Minuscule, Luxeuil Minuscule, Carolingian Minuscule (Caroline), Early Gothic, Gothic Textura Quadrata, Gothic Textura Prescisus, Gothic Littera Bastarda and Cadels

I find Drogin’s lettering diagrams less easy to follow than Harris’s, and it isn’t always clear when letter forms are modernized. I also strongly disagree with some of his comments on materials, particularly the recommendation of fountain pens, although I agree that quills are difficult to use and can be very frustrating and off-putting for beginners (if I couldn’t use a metal-nibbed dip pen, I would be very frustrated right now). Drogin does not cover Cadels as extensively as Harris.

Overall, while Drogin covers fewer hands than Harris, he does so in more depth. The hands are also presented differently. For example, Drogin’s Bastarda does not involve pen rotations (which can be tricky), while Harris’s does. I recommend both books strongly, as they complement each other well.

Johnston, Edward. Writing & Illuminating & Lettering. Pittman: London (1977).

Johnston was first published in 1906, and it’s pretty dense and sometimes hard to follow, but it’s an invaluable resource. It discusses working surface, quill and reed cutting, letter and line spacing, practicing, rubrication, gold, illumination, and just about everything else, and includes numerous black-and-white illustrations. Although some colors and techniques described are post-Renaissance, much is not.

Dawson, Giles E., and Kennedy-Skipton, Laetitia. Elizabethan Handwriting, 1500-1650: A Manual. W.W. Norton: New York (1966), 130 pp.

This is the only book I’ve found so far that really focuses on everyday writing rather than more formal book- or courthands. It focuses primarily upon the Elizabethan Secretary hand, a bastard script, although it also includes some examples of italic cursive (used primarily by women until 1600 or so, but which replaced Secretary in the 17th century) and a few legal and court hands.

The book includes discussion of Elizabethan spelling and the evolution of the Secretary hand, as well as numerous examples of 16th and 17th century handwritten documents with transcriptions, including several plates from various penmanship books. The handwritings presented vary wildly in formality.

It does NOT include any instructions on the hands themselves. However, between the plates from penmanship books and the instructions for Bastard Secretary in Harris, I imagine one could develop one’s own version of Secretary. There is a lot of latitude for variation.

Cennini, Cennino D’Andrea. Il Libro dell’ Arte (The Craftsman’s Handbook). Trans. Daniel V. Thompson Dover: New York (1933), 142 pp.

Probably written in the 14th century, this is an amazing primary source on Renaissance painting. Although much of it deals specifically with fresco painting, Cennini also discusses pigments, brushes, drawing with silverpoint, drawing on cloth, and many other topics. For instructions of preparing period pigments, it’s hard to beat Cennini. This English translation divides the text into useful sections, including “On the character of ultramarine blue, and how to make it” and “How to paint a dead man.”

The full text is available free online.

Thompson, Daniel V. The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting. Dover: New York (1956), 239 pp. (Originally published 1936).

Thompson’s thoroughly researched book covers topics like binding media, gesso, size, oils, pigments, and application of metals in detail. It is an excellent complement to Cennini.

Morgan, Margaret. The Bible of Illuminated Letters. Barron’s Educational Books: Hauppauge, NY (2006), 256 pp.

Although this is aimed at calligraphers inspired by rather than recreating historical work, it does include clear directions for gold and for illuminated letters in several historical styles, including Ottonian. It has some beautiful examples of historical manuscript pages that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and does discuss techniques like writing with thinned gouache for color calligraphy.

However, the hands presented ARE modernized, and design elements should be compared with historical examples before use. Morgan exaggerates the dangers of many historical pigments and recommends some extremely fugitive modern ones.

I like this book for inspiration, but I definitely recommend pairing it with one of the more historically accurate calligraphy books, such as Harris or Drogin.

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Why Use Period Paints? Tuesday, May 13 2008

1. Historical Accuracy
   This one is fairly obvious: if you are reproducing a historical style of illumination or painting, historically accurate pigments and binders will give the best results. Mixing your own paints by hand will create the same color and texture variations, and historical binders such as gum arabic, egg tempera, and glair all have unique properties that help reproduce specific effects.
2. Understanding Your Materials
   On a related note, understanding the historical materials as well as possible will help you understand why and how medieval and Renaissance artists chose particular color combinations or created particular effects. Even if you only use period materials once, they will give you a better idea of how to choose and use modern substitutes.
3. Understanding Your Work
   To understand the role of the illuminator in medieval society, it helps to physically go through the steps of making an illuminated page, not merely read about them. Mixing your own paints is part of this process.
4. Beauty
   Okay, this one is subjective. But I think that the textural and tonal variation of non-standardized pigments is a large part of what creates the beauty of medieval manuscripts. Yes, some of the colors will fade over time (so do many modern synthetic colors). Taking appropriate care of your work and keeping it out of direct sunlight helps. Medieval people were not stupid–they recognized the toxicity of many of their pigments, and they recognized the fugitive or reactive natures of some as well. That’s why Cennini, in the Renaissance, warns against “soiling your mouth with [orpiment], lest you suffer personal injury” and tells users of realgar, “look out for yourself.” And that’s why saffron, a fugitive dye, was used primarily in book illumination, where it would be protected from light.
5. Fun
   Another subjective one: I think it adds to the satisfaction if you make your own paints. The more you put into your work, the more satisfying it is. Also, I’ve always found playing with colors and solutions fun, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
6. Affordability
   Good quality premixed gouache and watercolors are pretty expensive, running $5-20 per 15 ml tube. A small bottle of gum arabic ($13) or an egg (< $1) will make a lot of paint, and most historical pigments are quite affordable. A little pigment and a little binder will make a lot of paint, and earth oxides in particular cost pennies. If you’re willing to put in more work, historical paint can easily be cheaper to work with than premixed paints of comparable quality.

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Fun with color swatches Monday, Mar 24 2008

Paint Swatches

Mostly M. Graham, except earth and indanthrene blue watercolors (Winsor & Newton, Holbein for the Yellow Ochre and Indian Red) and saffron (natural). The colors are a bit off:

Saffron: Attempt #1

A color which is made from an herb called saffron is yellow. You should put it on a linen cloth, over a hot stone or brick. Then take half a goblet or glass full of good strong lye. Put this saffron in it; work it up on the slab. This makes a fine color for dyeing linen or cloth. It is good on parchment. And see that it is not exposed to the air, for it soon loses its color. And if you want to make the most perfect grass color imaginable, take a little verdigris and some saffron; that is, of the three parts let one be saffron; and it comes out the most perfect grass-green imaginable, tempered with a little size, as I will show you later.
-Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, Il Libro dell’ Arte, trans. Daniel V. Thompson, Jr.

Saffron was typically mixed with glair in medieval times–a pinch of dried saffron was allowed to infuse into glair and it was good to go. It was used for both calligraphy and illumination in books, due to its fugitive nature. I’ve found some about saffron (especially in calligraphy) in Islamic illumination, but I have to pursue that further.

I also found a great reference from a Persian manuscript about how verdigris (prepared with yogurt!) will damage paper, and this may be averted by mixing it with saffron. So the verdigris + saffron combination wasn’t just a European thing.

Anyway, on account of wanting to see what saffron looked like, I infused it in gum arabic, since I haven’t mixed up any glair yet. It took a while to infuse (I might have speeded this process by mulling; I’ll try that next time), and made a very transparent, pale, bright yellow very close to true but with the faintest warmth to it. To be honest, I was expecting something with more of an orange tint to it. It was warmer than azo yellow and much cooler than gamboge hue, so I’m back to the drawing (painting?) board on a synthetic substitute. I ended up mixing the saffron with a touch of titanium white to make it cover more readily.

Here are the yellows I played with today. The saffron is natural Spanish saffron (yum! It smelled really good while I was painting), the azo yellow, titanium white, and gamboge are M. Graham gouache, and the gamboge WC is M. Graham watercolor (the viridian is also M. Graham watercolor, and I think I may end up getting the gouache version for mixing with white as a malachite substitute–it’s not quite right for verdigris, and I think I’ll have to carefully make some before I can really do comparisons. The photo is, of course, not a perfect representation.

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Color equivalencies Monday, Mar 17 2008

This site is amazingly comprehensive on the subject of watercolor pigments and colors. The author notes that lightfastness (both his and manufacturer’s) should be taken with a grain of salt–if you want to be really sure, test your specific tubes of paint.

I don’t really agree with him that modern synthetics are better in all ways than historical pigments, but hey, I’m in the SCA. I think that it’s important to at least understand the way historical pigments work–for example, a medieval illuminator would not typically have mixed red lead and white lead because the paint would probably turn black (in theory, they can be mixed if absolutely free of sulfur impurities). So mixing a modern orangeish red with titanium white to get a light red would produce a color the medieval illuminator wouldn’t have. But I also find that the historical colors do look subtly different, and working with them provides me with a historical experience that modern substitutes never can, even if I mix them myself.

Am I going to use saffron and glair on a piece for someone else? Absolutely not! But I still want to try it out on an intentionally impermanent piece for my own education. And I don’t think using less lightfast pigments on pieces that will not exposed to light–such as books–is a bad idea. Medieval manuscripts have, after all, retained their beauty for centuries.

Anyway, I’m working on a chart of historical pigments and modern watercolor and gouache equivalents (both authentic and substitute), and I think I’m going to have to list by major brands. It’s an interesting project. For some things, such as vermilion/natural cinnabar, it’s easy to find a universally recommended substitute (cadmium red light). For others, I’m going to have to mix up the period paints and try to figure out what I’d use. And some are just going to be a shot in the dark–synthetic dibromoindigo seems to be impossible to find, so I’m going to have to guess at possible transparent substitutes for Tyrian purple based on photographs (and Tyrian purple was hugely variable based on both mollusc species and preparation technique).

I really want to put some of the Daniel Smith PrimaTek colors on a microscope slide and check them out with a petrographic scope now (assuming that would work with ground minerals rather than thin sections). I’m really, really skeptical that some of those colors are genuine minerals, particularly the rhodonite, and that should be easy to tell under a scope. I might even be able to tell with my old kid’s scope, if I still had it. I’ll have to see if I can check that out….

In other news, I’ve been doodling with gouache a lot, and my brush hand is a LOT steadier, so my next attempt at illumination won’t be as wobbly. I need to work on my Carolingian spacing, though. Yesterday I painted my first super miniature portrait (about 1.5″ across, round, because that was the only decent frame I could find–16th century miniatures were usually larger). Of course it’s in gouache and not oils and it has issues, but it vaguely looks like me, if I were darker, Spanish, and didn’t ever smile. Close enough for 1.5″, I think. I need to paint one of Melchior and varnish/seal them so they look less gouache-y and acrylic-seal the brass frames so they won’t tarnish and then we can wear twinky miniature portraits of each other.

I’m hoping to have some time over spring break (between sewing, embroidery, work, and homework, not in that order) to play with the period pigments some more and make glair and tempera.

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Calligraphy and illumination class! Monday, Mar 10 2008

I’m going to take a calligraphy and illumination class in May, which I expect to be fun. Here’s the class description:

Celtic And Historical Calligraphy

During this course you will learn the skills of the masters of European Calligraphy. We’ll cover historical inking colours, their origins and how they are made. Parchments and vellums, various papers, quill types, quill cutting, scripting tables, layout geometry, and related themes will be demonstrated and discussed. Period scripting and styles, including Celtic, Ottonian, Renaissance, and others, will be explained and illustrated. Skill in scripting, design, illustration, and illumination is used in historical reproduction work as well as modern art. The information presented will surprise modern digital graphic ad layout artists, enhancing their knowledge and depth in their own professional fields. Please bring $10 to class for materials.

It’s a two-day workshop taught by Dan Cheatham II, who’s clearly trying to spin it to appeal to modern graphic artists, but his real interests are historical. So more practice making period paints, AND he has genuine lapis and malachite to play with, which will be exciting since there is no freaking way I’m going to buy lapis to grind up myself at the current prices. So this may be my chance to find out how genuine lapis looks and handles differently from synthetic ultramarine.

Dan also teaches a longbow making class, which would really tempt me if I liked shooting longbows, which I don’t. But I am tempted by the leatherwork class, since several people have suggested tooling as an alternative to stamping for the Gothic-lettered motto belts I want to make from Dress Accessories, and Melchior and his boss don’t do tooling at work on account of things like profit margins. So getting some instruction in that might be a good idea. I’ll have to see how finances and time go.

There’s a baronial corset workshop coming up, so I need to do a mockup fitted as far as I can get without help on the modified Dorothea bodies.

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My first award scroll Sunday, Mar 9 2008

(click for larger image)

I finished my first award scroll for the blank scroll competition at Outlands Crown this weekend (Lady Lucrezia took it for me). It’s based loosely on the Gregori Moralium, a 10th-11th century Ottonian manuscript, and I’m not exactly pleased with it–it was my first attempt and has loads of problems, both in terms of historical accuracy and technique (my Carolingian spacing in particular needs lots of work!), but I learned a lot. You can also tell that I became much steadier with my brush about halfway through–all the outlining on the illumination is done with a brush, including the really fine lines around the text decorations. The outlining on the initial U was a lot messier before I went over it again, which is why that outlining is so broad. This was also the first time I used a dip pen, and while it’s much easier than a cartridge pen, you can definitely tell I wasn’t quite used to it.

I really like Ottonian stuff, though, and since Carolingian is the only hand I’ve tried that doesn’t make me want to give up in frustration, I think I’ll stick with this style for now. I’d really like to try the gold-on-purple, and some of the zoomorphic animal initials. I might also see if anyone needs Russian or Arabic scrolls, since I’m fairly sure I could do those after refreshing my Arabic alphabet. I’m hoping to do some non-blank scrolls, though….

Full documentation (written in an afternoon and not really up to my usual citation standards) can be downloaded here: Documentation for Ottonian blank AoA (PDF).

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Gouache brands Monday, Mar 3 2008

I heard back from Puppy Khan of the Silver Horde on the yarlik, and it looks like I’m wrong about the Kufic (on second glance, yeah, way wrong, haha). I need to poke around on JSTOR.

Anyway, I’ve been looking at gouache. So far I’ve tried Savoir Faire (crap, but okay for playing with), Winsor and Newton, M. Graham, and I think Holbein (I don’t remember all the brands I tried at Scribal Guild yesterday). Pretty much all the SCA sources recommend Winsor and Newton designer’s gouache, but when I look around on fine art message boards, people recommend M. Graham and Schminke artist’s gouache, since they’re both made with pure pigments and rely on pigment load rather than fillers to cover. M. Graham even has honey added (how period!).

Of all the ones I’ve tried, the M. Graham is the nicest to paint with. Seriously, a dream. It’s possible that adding a drop of honey to other brands of gouache would work as well. Most of the colors are well-rated for fastness, and they’re not much more expensive than W&N. So I think I’ll stick with those (I might even try a fade test with different brands), since I like knowing what my active pigment is–this seems to be one of those cases of the SCA being out of sync with reality.

Also on the subject of gouache, I’ve seen it claimed that it’s no more period than acrylic (!). I am puzzled by this. M. Graham gouache is made with (sometimes period) pigments, gum arabic, and honey (and presumably some stabilizers to keep it from spoiling). How is this as different from period paint (which could be made with gum arabic and honey) as acrylics (plastic)? If I were mixing my own paint from ground pigments, that’s pretty much what I’d do. One could even add glair or egg yolk to gouache, I imagine, but I think painting with gum arabic only as a base was done as well. And I have found gouache and hand mixed paints with gum arabic binder to handle similarly.

(I just spent about $35 on a basic assortment of M. Graham gouache, for those times when I feel lazy and don’t want to mix up my own paints. Interestingly, this is what a set of period pigments and the necessary equipment costs from Griffin Dyeworks, and you get to pick 12 of your own colors–I only got 8 colors of gouache. Why do people think period pigments are “more expensive” than good-quality premixed paints?

Anyway, I bought, um, Ivory Black, Titanium White (I’ll probably get Zinc White later for tinting), Ultramarine, Sap Green (artificial), Yellow Ochre (natural), Burnt Sienna (natural), Gamboge (artificial), and Pyrrol Red (I’m trying to avoid paints that contain cadmium). I think that’s a good starter range, especially since I have a small assortment of period pigments and powdered dyes to supplement with.)

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To post about Wednesday, Jan 23 2008

-Amazing exhibit of 16th to 19th century prints I saw last week.
-16th century herbals.
-My columbine slip progress and the things I’ve learned in the process so far.

I need to put together a handout for A&S this weekend. I’m not trying to finish the Italian Ren by then, because I decided I’d rather work on something I enjoy right now (the slip) than something I don’t (sewing). Afterwards I’ll try to put together some shoes and a simple Anglo-Saxon for Estrella, probably. I hope to have the slip done by the end of the month. Then I still need to decide what to do for the other three and pick out some insects for filler (butterfly, caterpillar, dragonfly, bee, probably).

I found 4 yards of an amazing red/gold shot silk dupioni (45″ wide) on the remnants table at Joann’s today for only $5/yard. I have no idea what I’ll do with it–it’s really lightweight, so probably an interlining to show through slashes–but it’s gorgeous, and how often does one find $5/yard shot silk dupioni in fabulous colors?

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Books! (and projects) Wednesday, Jan 9 2008

On the recommendation of a lady I met last night at fighter practice, I went and checked J.A. Szirmai’s The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding out of the library, and since I’m thinking of getting into scribal (at least the calligraphy part), I also checked out Mark Drogin’s Medieval Calligraphy. While wandering through the stacks, I fortuitously came across a couple books very relevant to the insane Chaucer project!

The Renaissance Chaucer, by Alice S. Miskimin is not, unfortunately for me, about printing. But it does contain a wealth of information about Chaucer’s effect on 16th century literature, and also spends several chapters talking about the Elizabethan “Chaucerian” canon, which was approximately 40% not-really-Chaucer (and much of that not only inauthentic, but bad*). This raises some interesting, if hair-pull-provoking, questions about how authentic I want to be.

I also checked out Pica Roman Type in Elizabethan England, by W. Craig Ferguson. A WHOLE BOOK about the type family I want to use! And tons and tons of pictures of book pages, which will give me a wealth of information about layout and initial cap possibilities! Actually, most of the book is pictures of pages.

I also went to my favorite used bookstore and found a cheap copy of Thomasina Beck’s Embroidered Gardens (maybe now that I own it I will actually read the whole thing, haha) and The History and Technique of Lettering, by Alexander Nesbitt, which looked interesting.

Projects:

Avoided working on the camicia last night on account of going to fighter practice, where I showed Lucretzia sketches of possibilities for her blue linen. That went something like this:

ME: So which one do you like better?
HER: I like them all! I can mix and match, right?
ME: Eep.

Anyway, the plan is to get her some more linen for shirts, and make her some more accurate shirts/smocks in various styles (probably one of each–low-necked smock, high gathered neck, and high ungathered neck). During this process, I’ll work on fitting her for a doublet/bodice, and we will go from there. But not much until after Estrella, probably.

I have promised to finish fitting Melchior’s doublet pattern tonight (he wants me to teach him to draft patterns, but he has unrealistic engineer-brained expectations of a magic formula based on measurements–the thought of “eyeballing” the armscye or the shoulder rise makes him grouchy. I think someone who thinks like he does needs to teach him to draft patterns). It is my first attempt at patterning a doublet, using the instructions at The Renaissance Tailor, and I think it’s going pretty well. I do not think I can fit myself, although if I draft the basic pattern, Melchior probably won’t complain too much about fitting. Is it possible to fit a doublet on oneself or is that one of those duct tape dummy things?

Anyway, we watched “just half an hour” of Elizabeth I (Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons), which was more like an hour, and I did a little more on my first cushion slip. I got sick of outlining, so I’m filling in a few bits. It’s a blue columbine from Tudor Treasures to Embroider, and I was originally going to use the other slips–daffodil, gillyflower, and rose–but counting slips annoys me (I’m not very accurate) and isn’t period anyway, plus I’m unethused about all but the gillyflower (I probably should have done that one, oops). So I think I’m going to just draw the other three slips. Or use the gillyflower and draw the other two. I’m trying to get a good color balance, and toying with either two flowers/two fruits or one slip from each season. But this is probably my modern sensibilities. The slips will be appliqued onto dark red/maroon velvet, most likely.

Possibilities:

• Strawberry (red and white)
• Apple (probably yellow or green)
• Primrose (yellow or some other color)
• Pansy (various options)
• Crocus (purple, yellow/orange, white
• Pine (would be good for winter, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a non-deciduous slip)

I should look through my almost-period botanical catalog for ideas.

On the second go-around, after looking at more paintings, I’m less impressed with the costumes in Elizabeth I, but they’re still quite good overall. It does look like they made at least one of everything in Janet Arnold, regardless of period, though, and there are some oddities. On the other hand, woah, a shift that actually appears to be cut correctly, and out of linen!

Still a lovely movie, though.

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