Time Painted: April 2012
It’s been an illuminating week. And if you groaned at that, congratulations, you know the other meaning of “Illumination”! If you check the dictionary definitions, they tend to just stick to all the “having light shed upon the subject” type definitions, with the occasional definition that includes the metaphor usage as well. (“I found the poem illuminating; it caused me to think about things I had not thought of before”) But, there’s also an art form known as illumination. It is the combination of text and decoration, with the decoration supporting the text rather than the other way around. It’s an ancient art, with some of the most famous examples, such as the Book of Kells being created over a thousand years ago. It was an expensive process, both in time required and materials required, so only important books, such as bibles, were illuminated.
A large part of the expense was that a very very large proportion of illuminated manuscripts involved gold leaf. In fact, the strictest definitions of this type of illumination require the use of gold. I suspect this is part of where the name came from, since metallic leaf and paint reflect light, and thus actually CAN illuminate something if circumstances allow.
Modern illumination is tied very closely to modern calligraphy. In fact, the book I’ve been learning illumination from covers both calligraphy and illumination, and focuses far more on the calligraphy. Which is perfectly logical, since the emphasis of an illuminated piece is on the text, while the decoration merely backs it up. Knowing how to make the text both decorative and readable is important.
I’ve produced two illuminated pieces, plus two related border plates, this week. The image above is the most recent. Tammy is my psychologist, who has been helping get my brain to the point that I stop being so hermitty and start trying to sell my art and the like. I felt like doing another illuminated piece Wednesday night, and was trying to decide on a word when the proto-piece combined with the fact I had an appointment the next day to say “Let’s make a present!” It was an interesting experiment, since I chose the decoration based on what I knew of her tastes, which lead to a very different feel than if I made it using my tastes.
Time Painted: April 2012
This piece (I know, bonus art!) was my first piece, where I was testing mechanics more than anything else. It says “Sharayah Mail” and has duct tape in the corners because it’s a more functional piece. I live with my parents, I’m not the one to get the mail, and Dad’s a wee bit bad about telling me I got mail. This has lead to one too many times of my being late on a bill purely because I didn’t find it in time. So I made a mailbox. It’s probably the fanciest cardboard mailbox this side of Topeka, if I say so myself. I didn’t want to just stick the box on the wall as it was, since that would not have been that appealing, so I made art for it. The black notch on top is where some cardboard’s missing, and I folded over the piece of the art paper that would have covered the missing spot to help secure the decorative panel better. I also made two almost identical side panels to cover the sides (the back is against the wall, the top is open, and the bottom is below eye level), seen below.
Time Painted: April 2012
I’ve already learned some nifty things about this art form, and I’ll probably continue making these pieces. I’d talk more about those concepts (like why erasing your guidelines BEFORE painting the piece is a good idea…) but that would be a whole other post worth of text and, well, I can make it into a full post easily.
At least these pieces all (sort of) follow the rule of having gold, since I broke out my metallic gold paint for this. It’s not gold leaf, but it is shiny. I am oddly proud of this.
