My 10 Favorite European Illuminated Manuscript Inspirations

For your viewing pleasure, I give you my 10 most artistically inspiring illuminated manuscripts. Not all are lavish, but all encourage my creativity. I hope they do yours too.  Book of Kells created c. 800, is a calligraphy masterwork and pinnacle of Insular illumination. Regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure, its extravagance and decoration complexity combines traditional Christian motifs with ornate swirling patterns. Humans, animals […]

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10 Free On-line How To Make Paint Tutorial Links

I’m getting up to speed on making paint from pigments, again. Preparing to teach my paint making class in a few weeks. I found several on-line tutorials you may like. The first part of making paint is dispersing a powdered colorant in water.  The second part is mixing in a binder. The binder in each video is different.  Still, I learned tips from each video, even the videos using a binder different than I use. Written Sources “Making Your Own Water-based Paint“–Natural Pigments excellent tutorial on the grinding tools and paint making. I love the articles this company provides you free on-line. Pigments Into Paint–A free pdf provided by the Guild of Limners. They sell all paint making supplies, too. Have a look at their whole website. Playing With Period Pigments: A Make And Take Class–My class handout on Google Doc (minus its pictures). YouTube Videos Pigments and Paints Colorfest Exploratorium—Alex Warren, Sinopia Pigments founder, demonstrates grinding a pigment and then mixing it into egg yolk binder to make paint. He makes it look so very easy. And it is! Making Ochre Paints—Using soil and roadside rocks artist Helen Fitzgerald makes Ochre watercolor paint.  Making Watercolor Paint Out of Natural Pigment, Tutorial—A step by step tutorial by artist Ekaterina Smirnova. She shows how to make watercolor paint from pigments found in nature.  How To Make Oil Paint–A tutorial about making pigment into oil paint. How To Make Your Own Oil Paint— A Howcast tutorial about studio […]

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How-to Remove Scary From Writing SCA Documentation

In my previous article on arts and sciences documentation I responded to a common SCA non-writer’s lament. It presented several ways to show off creations without detailed writing. So what? What can you do if you want to write documentation? How do you learn to do it or improve at it? I won’t re-invent the wheel here. Instead, I give you resources to help you remove the scary from writing documentation. If you are very new to this try the first link. Others have sections on basic documentation that help as well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The SCA Arts and Sciences Easy Documentation-Writing Form on Ez-Doc–This Ez-Doc is form you edit with specific categories predetermined. You fill in sections relating to names (SCA and modern), project title, your inspiration (historical basis), tools and materials, procedure/methods, and sources. Entries Showing Documentation A & S Documentation Made Simple–A 2 page pdf about documentation steps. It’s presented in a form similar to many documentation entries I’ve judged. Examples included. Kingdom of Atlantia Arts and Sciences Handbook includes three brief sections on documentation. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As I come from the Kingdom of Calontir, I include this link to their Arts and Sciences Criteria. Have a look at what judges expect to learn from you about your creation. Each category is broken into sections: novice, intermediate, and advanced. There is so much to be learned from writing about your project. It crystallizes your knowledge about your medieval creation. These links […]

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