12th Century Style Painted Dragon

Last Autumn I got a commission to do a painting of a dragon; the what and how of it was entirely up to me. Since I love medieval things, I naturally went in that direction. Several years before, I had come across an illuminated letter in Amiens BM142 an illuminated Manuscript in the Amiens library. This is a "lectionary" produced in Corbie Abbey around 1150 which is full of fun animals in vegetal swirls. All of the decorations which are called "illuminated initials" (first letters of words drawn with pictures or other decorations) are fantastic, but I was drawn to this dragon, especially. At the time I first saw it, I worked out a sketch, taking it from a roughly square format to a vertical one and eliminating its use as a letter, totally focusing on the dragon as a stand alone artwork. 

Detail from the 12th century style dragon
painted with hand-made traditional egg tempera

When I got the commission, I instantly knew that I already had my planning stage nearly finished. so I transferred it onto some watercolour paper and did a bit more fine tuning of the design. At this stage I had to think about how I would paint it. When I initially drew it eight years ago, I had thought I would paint it in the same manner as the original, but as a commissioned work it needed more colour and substance.

Amiens, BM MS 0142; the inspirational source

Drawn out and ready with the
 illuminator's bole

Applying the bole
(Still taken from a video)

After application of the bole

A lot of medieval painting and artwork from the 10th into the14th centuries utilised a gilded background as the basis for the painting. That seemed like a perfect starting point for this work as well, so I began by making up some traditional illuminator's bole ("bole" is the substance that the gold is stuck to in gilding work) from a mixture of yellow clay, animal glue, egg white, and honey. This I applied to the proper areas and then applied the gold. With this type of bole, one moistens the surface by breathing on it and then immediately pressing the gold into the freshly dampened area. One must go over it two or three times in this manner to get complete and deep coverage of the gilding.

23.5 karat gold leaf applied to the bole

Once the gilding has been done, the painting starts. To make the paint, one takes mineral powders of a desired colour and puts them on a heavy flat stone, adds a bit of water and then with a muller, begins to grind the pigment into a smooth paste. The grinding finished, the artist scoops up the mixture and adds it to an equal portion of egg yolk that has been mixed with water. This is the binder which turns what is essentially "coloured mud" into paint. For this style of art, each colour is painted on one at a time and there is no "blending" or mixing of colours. Any shading that occurs is done by lightening the saturation of pigment or over-painting with a lighter or darker colour.

The first two colours

The method of grinding the paint and the egg
used for the binder seen in a small jar

Rather like a "paint by number" the picture
slowly comes to life

The painting process went on nicely and I really enjoy painting with this medium. It almost transports one back in time working in this method. For even more "authenticity" I opt to use clam shells for my paint cups. Something that I have seen in a couple of 14th century illustrations. It is fun to see the painting "come to life" one colour at a time.

Nearing completion, but there is a flaw...

Even though I decided not to paint in the same manner as the original, which is actually painted with coloured inks as opposed to egg tempera, I did draw heavily from the colour arrangement that the original artist used. Two new colours, blue and a purple were added, but I still got in trouble when it came to not having two of the same colour beside each other. Because the original artist was using ink, and thus left a lot of white parchment show through, he was able to make a line on one side of a shape in one colour, but the opposite side of the same shape was done with a contrasting colour, thus ensuring that no two colours bordered each other. Painting in solid form, however, soon produced a "choke point" where the intertwining tail came back on itself, causing the green to encounter more green. I first tried to solve this by lightening the edge of the larger section of the tail, but this did not look authentic and I was not happy with it. 

The good thing is that freshly painted tempera can be easily scraped off and one has a chance to have another go at it. Incidentally, medieval scribes are almost always depicted with a feather (their pen) and a knife. The knife is both for sharpening the pen and as a "rubber" for removing mistakes or making corrections in the work. Turns out this is a very crucial piece of equipment.

After scraping and the beginning of some
colour changes

To keep the "flow" the orange of the body
was extended to the first break before
switching to the green of the tail

The funny thing is, once you decide that one area has to be changed, it affects other areas and soon you have a "snowball" effect going and lots of colour has to be removed and changed. Fortunately the avalanche was not huge and I found a stopping place for the scraping. Several areas had to have their colours re-done differently to maintain harmony and balance, but I think overall there was an improvement in the outcome.

At the same time, I also made another change to an area that had been vexing me, but until that point, I had not thought of how to fix it. I wanted the gold background to extend more on the righthand side, but there was no natural break in the design to conceal the transition. Every other place with the exception of one, in the entire picture has outlines for colour breaks. That one spot, between the blue and the green of the background in the final curl of the dragon's tail gave me the clue on how to do it, but it took me a while to realise how to adapt the idea elsewhere. The end solution was to have a serpentine line making the break between the green and the gold. (A keen observer will also note that I changed the colour of green for the background; this was because the original was too close to the green of the tail and did not provide enough contrast.)

 

The finished dragon

The final step, in keeping with the style of the medieval source material, was to add white highlights and then to outline all the major components in black. In all, this was an extremely fun and inspiring work and I thoroughly enjoyed my time doing it. The client was also extremely pleased with the outcome.

I am always accepting new commissions; feel free to reach out to initiate your very own special project. I may be contacted by phone, (number at the top in the banner) or through Instagram or WhatsApp. at Johann International.

Fine

12th Century Style Wedding Box, Part V; The Hardware and Finish

 This will be the end of blogging about the wedding box. It was such a major project that I wanted to make several posts about it. Normally, such projects take months or years to complete, so there is plenty of time to make several updates on the progress. In the case with this one, though, it was a commission which had to be completed in less than three months, so there was definitely no extra time for blogging.

Custom made hinge ready to be drilled and the installed

Once the basic concept of the layout and design of the box had been solidified in my mind and I commenced its construction, the concept of hardware began to scratch the back of my mind. Anyone who has tried making medieval furniture will know that there is not much suitable hardware that one can simply order from a catalogue, and even less (actually none that I know of) if you want 12th century style hardware.

As I worked on making the box, I began to realise that if I wanted it to look "right" I would have to make something myself; but how? As the days went by, I slowly began to develop a plan, and once that plan was fully formed, I got right into executing it, right in the middle of the bone carving stage.

Design for an 11th or 12th century box hinge

I have a friend about an hour away, who has a window and door restoration business. Often, he is not able to find hardware that he needs, so he and a couple of his guys have worked together to teach themselves how to do metal casting. I asked him if he would be willing to make something for me if I provided him with sample parts. He gave me a price he said he could do it for, and I got to work.

Once I had a means to my end, it was time to make some parts. I thought about different materials to use, but ultimately decided on making them out of wood. (walnut, to be specific) I then got some paper and a pencil and drew out what I had in mind, stuck the drawing to some timber and started in on it. It took me a bit more than a full day to make the hinge, the catch and a foot, but I had a head start on a foot because about ten years ago I tuned a 9th century style candle stick and cut away sections from the base, in order to carve three feet in the remaining portions. I saved those cut-offs because I thought that they might come in handy at some future date...

Pictures of the process of making the hinge
I cut the parts with a coping saw, then carved and filed
them to their final shape
The 'V' notch on the table was how I supported the work
whilst cutting it out.

I had hoped to be able to watch the process and even help with it, as it is something that I too have long wanted to learn about, but he  was not able to accommodate me the day I dropped off the parts so I saw nothing of it. Two or three weeks later, he met me at my place with some finished feet, a finished casting of the "Lovebirds" and blobs of brass (it was supposed to have been bronze, but something got lost in translation) which had the hinges hiding in them.

The hinges as they were delivered

After the hinges, it was on to a catch

My own invention, but in the spirit of the 
12th century. "Love birds" were a perfect motif 
for a wedding box

Lastly the feet. I started with a section of a turning that I made 
in order to make some 9th century feet for a candle-stick.

The cutting out and polishing of the parts was interesting and a bit of a challenge, but I am handy with more than just a wood saw, so metal is just another material to be cut as needed. Once they were sawn out and the backs cut and filed down, they had to be filed and then polished on a buffing wheel.

I was so pleased with the results and happy that I took the time to do them,; they really added a nice level of authenticity to the entire project.

The case built to conceal the wedding box 
for the delivery.

Since the client had no clue of what I was actually making, and never saw anything of it until the project was finished and delivered, I decided to have a little fun. I built another box of cherry which was large enough to put the bone and intarsia box inside. (It would also serve as a receptacle for the cards that would be given to the newlyweds at the reception). Thus as was my intention, all the client had to say when I delivered the box two days before the wedding was that it was very nice. When they opened it, however the plan proved to have been a great idea. I have never seen any client so astonished and beside themselves for words over anything that I have made. The best comment of all came from the soon-to-be groom who said "people just don't make stuff like this anymore! This belongs in a museum."

Mission accomplished!

Completed 12th century style wedding box with custom
made cast brass hardware ; front and back

12th Century Style Bone Box - Part IIII; The lid and interior

As promised, this post is about the making of the lid. There will be one more post to finish this, which will cover the hardware and finishing up of the project.

Intarsia is finished. At this point, no bone had yet 
been stuck on, save for the centre front.

For the outside of the lid, it was carry on with what was going on for the sides, bone border surrounding intarsia veneers. I did use a different pattern for the top, which was again parts left from another project  done some years earlier. This pattern was larger than what is on the sides, but it still worked and looked good. I have seen a couple medieval intarsia pieces with similar designs, so it is also "period correct". 

After gluing the intarsia

My cutting set-up. This is a saw I made many years
ago the glued-on miter cut piece is a guide.

Gluing the string border.

Even though the previous post shows the bone on the sides, I actually did not start carving the bone until the lid has been veneered as well. Once all the intarsia was finished, I did get to work on the bone, but the stuff for the lid was done once the front and ends of the box was finished. The bone for the back was the very last that was finished and it had a different pattern to it. I will be showing that in my next (and last) post about this box.

I had toyed with the idea of using holly as a substitute for the border of the entire box; I even went so far as cutting up enough strips of it to do the whole project. However, after I carved a bit of the holly and made a comparison with the bone I decided that I definitely liked the bone more, so I stuck with that. For the inside of the lid, however, the holly seemed like a good candidate to save my having to find a bunch more bones, since I had depleted the entire stock at the pet shop.

The plates ready for application

The nails are both functional and decorative

Close-up detail

Even if the holly was not as good for the carving, it was fine for the less complicated inside that I wanted to use. Somewhere I once saw a medieval box that was covered in plates of bone, nailed on with lots of gold pins in a geometric pattern. The memory of this was my inspiration for doing the inside lining of the lid. My pattern for the nails was mainly dictated by the size and shape of the plates of holly. Before applying them, I used wood bleach to bleach them whiter than their natural colour, even though it is already fairly white. With the application of the bleach, the colour is as bright as the bone. 

A lucky find at a fabric shop. 

I had no idea what I would do for the inside of the box, In the back of my mind, as I worked, were rather abstract ideas of block printed textile patterns or some white fabric painted to look like damask. One day I was in a fabric shop and saw a pattern that I realised would work for my project - except the only colour it was available in, was blue and white. I realised, however, that I could probably dye it and make a nicer colour, so I bought a strip of it, put some dye in a jar added the fabric, shook it up for a while, and then removed it. Once it was dry, it was perfect.

Dying the fabric. and the way it looked when still wet

The finished interior

Another nice thing about this piece of cloth, though I did not know it at the time of purchase, was that the pattern was perfect to fit the box. the sides were one square high, the width was two. and the length was three, One cannot get much more "lucky" than that.

To apply the fabric, I used a wheat glue, which is made by cooking a bit of flour and water, with a pinch of salt to prevent moulding before it dries.