Sacred Art Institute: Illuminated House Blessing

Angell Hall is the new art studio where we would spend our days. When I was on the island (Enders Island in Mystic Connecticut) in 2015, this building was just being remodeled. This was my third time on the island, and my fourth class with the instructor.

 The studio on the left had lightboxes for tracing and the Keurig machine. The studio on the right, was where we lived during the day. (At night we were housed in a dormitory. All meals and snacks were provided.)

 The studio comfortably seated the 10 students, Valerie Weilmuenster, the instructor, and Sr. Eugenia Brady, S.J.C., the spiritual leader as well as a student. The studio was bright and had large window views of the ocean. 

Sister Eugenia led the class in a morning devotion/meditation to help us focus our thoughts on creating the best work that we could.

Monday morning after Mass, students were invited to have their hands blessed. We then went to the studio to begin the work for the week.

 I took process photos during the week, but not as many as I thought I had. Valerie had the class well laid out and kept us on task so everyone would have a completed project at the end of the week.

The blessing was to be written in Uncial (commonly called Celtic). It's one of the earlier hands used in Europe from 300 AD, oops, C.E to 800 C.E. when Charlemagne was crown Holy Roman Emperor. We spent the morning practicing the letters that would be used in the quote. We worked with a size 1.5 mm Brause nib and Moon Palace sumi ink. Valerie lettered our names on place cards.

In the afternoon, we made shell gold. We mixed sheets of loose leaf gold with gum arabic and a few drops of water. This mixture was ground with our finger! into a sort of dry paste. When the process was complete, we washed the bowl and our finger with distilled water and left the gold to settle to the bottom of the bowl. 

After the gold settles, the leftover water is removed either by pipette (safer) or quickly dumping out the water. Any remaining water is left overnight to evaporate. The gold leaf has now been turned into a paint. It's called shell gold because in the Middle Ages, the paint was made and stored in a clam or scallop type shell. 

Tuesday 

We spent the morning with some more practice. We had a 2 PM deadline to get the quote lettered on our good paper. Since there was so much involved with a piece like this, to save time and ensure each student had a successful outcome, the design was pre-printed on a Strathmore watercolor paper. I forgot to write down which one.

We also traced the versal letters and the quote for spacing and layout. The title Bless Our Home was lettered with a 2 mm. nib. All lettering is done before the gilding and painting. If a mistake is made in lettering, it's easier to correct or redo if necessary without wasting the gold leaf. 

The illuminated initial design was to be gilded with 23 karat gold leaf. Instacoll Gold Size was applied for the gilding base instead of the traditional gesso as the Instacoll is a bit easier to use.

We mixed the paint to be used a combination of gouache (opaque watercolor) and watercolor. A traditional, color palette used during the Middle Ages was red, green, and blue. Valerie chose for us a modern variation of Ultramarine and Prussian Blue, Magenta, and Sap Green.

The base is gilded. usually with 2 layers of gold leaf. Lots of variables are involved in the process, weather, humidity, materials, paper. For whatever reason, I could not get a second layer of gold to stick and decided to call one layer of gold leaf good.

Wednesday

After the gold leaf, the shell gold is painted into the vine design and the versal letters of the title. The larger versal letters were outlined in blue using a Hunt 513 EF nib.

The leaf gold is shined with an agate burnisher using a sheet of glassine paper to burnish through. The shell gold can be burnished directly on the gold.

Thursday

One of the important lessons to remember during a workshop is you most likely won't be doing museum quality work and mistakes may be made. The idea is to learn the process so you can do things on your own.

Valerie is a patient teacher and adept at correcting mistakes. My table mate had smeared some of her lettering when she removed her guide sheet (place under your hand to keep the oils of your skin from being absorbed by the good paper) and it fell in her wet lettering.. When the ink was dry, Valerie used an electric eraser and an Exacto knife to remove the smeared bits.

I also had made a mistake. I thought the blue outline of the versal letters was dry. It wasn't so when I went to erase my pencil lines, I smeared some blue paint in the bowl of the "O". Valerie said I had two options to choose how to make a correction. I could use the electric eraser to remove the blue or I could just paint the counter spaces (interior of letters) with the shell gold. Well, you can't have too much bling so I went for the gold.

The design was painted in and detail dots and lines were added using Gansai White.

Friday

Filigree around the blue versal letters was done  Winsor Newton Gold Ink and a pointed pen. Outlines around the title versals and initial and vine were outlined to clean up and allow the gold things to really stand out. We could outline with pen and ink or  a Pigma Micron .01 pen. I used the Pigma pen.

Class ended at noon, and we were presented a certificate. The island photographer also took pictures of us with our completed work and a class picture.

All materials were provided in this workshop,and you could bring your own tools. We got to take home the shell gold we made, the palettes of paint, handouts detailing the process, the Winsor Newton Sceptre 101 size 0 brush, memories and friendships made.

 I'll be returning in October for another session this time with another instructor, Kathy Millici, for The Prayer of St. Francis

If Illuminated Manuscripts aren't your thing, there are lots of other sacred arts offered: Iconography, Gregorian Chant, Stained Glass and Mosaics, Painting and Drawing. There are week long and day workshops offered. Check them out here.