Plans for the next part of my work

OK, this will be thinking out, planning out, and something to refer back to.

Not to forget, in amongst this, I have a Coptic book to make. I have to remain mum on the details of this, since Kit reads this blog. Or perhaps I will end up putting in details of it's development and the suprise will be seeing the book itself at the end 'in person'.

• Theoretical Work

1. Script Analysis

Gather pages from the 3 Mss Paul recommended

• The Bedford Hours
• The Psalter of Queen Mary
• The Geese Book

Create a (cardboard) folder for each.

For each script

a. Go through the questions that Meisterin Katarina Helene so kindly provided in order to :

b. Create an exemplar.

14th September I need to include abbreviations and ligatures and look for the missing letters (eg 'k') - Thanks Jeannie Leighton

In the past, I've written the letters out to create the exemplar. However, it's crazy to write out less-than-perfect letters to then learn from! I'll have to make photocopies of the sources, and play cut and paste with a final photocopy.

c. 19th September Build a sheet of 'basic' strokes for the hand - eg the tops of the ascenders (maybe forked), some end strokes (maybe dipped), the particular curves etc.

d. --- This is where I get to start practising the script in my practical work (below) ---

e. 19th September After reading Sheila Water's paper Analysing Script and Practising Effectively, I think it'd be a good idea to do a script analysis on my own work, once I'm happy with it. And then to compare with the original script analysis to pick up any errors.

2. I'll call the following MSS Page Analysis.

Continue on the analysis work, but this time of the other elements on the pages of the MSS.
A great help will be Mistress Rowan Perigrynne's "Analyzing a Style" paper from the Lochac College of Scribes,

http://www.sca.org.au/scribe/articles/analysing.htm

and the notes at the end of Drogin's "Medieval Calligraphy",

walking through general layout, borders, margins, capitals at various levels of text, use of colour and so on.

I'm inspired to do this because of the mistakes I made in using pen flourishing etc in "The Second Coming" that Paul picked up. By the end of doing this for the 3 Mss, I'll have a good idea of the style/s used with these 3 High Gothic Textura Quadrata Mss.

3. Gothic Textura Quadrata analysis

This will be the 'putting the High Gothic Textura Quadrata script in context' part of the work that Paul recommended.

For the moment, I'll confine the scope of the work just to G.T.Q, not other variations of the Gothic script family.

I'll hunt through all of my books that could possibly contribute something to the history of G.T.Q (Source Book for Scribes - Brown/Lovett, Medieval Calligraphy- Drogin, Historical Scripts - Knight, and the History of Calligraphy books I have - Gaur, Anderson etc.

I think I'll build a 'master analysis' document, comprised of Mistress Katarina's script analysis questions, Mistress Rowan's Mss page questions (and she has script analysis questions in there as well - that's where my existing list came from!) and Drogin's list, to make a streamlined list.

The information from different periods of G.T.Q will be fitted in under each heading.
So each heading will have 3 sections to start (from the 3 High G.T.Q. mss) and any more I can find.
Plus there will probably be 'general information that I find that isn't specifically dated that I can add in as general notes under that heading.

If I quickly exhaust the G.T.Q information available to me from books I can

• find other sources of other High G.T.Q, (probably from the lovely scribes if not from the books) and examine their differences.

• I need to think more to incorporate more script analysis. Paul wants me working from scripts, not books.

• To include collection of more elements of script decoration and any other distinctive page elements from as many well regarded High script sources as possible (think more)
  

• I think that I need to develop my own 'family' tree of the Gothic script, with examples of each (photocopied)

• be in a position then to decide how much further down/around the tree I'm going to go with this complete analysis of the Gothic script family.

• hopefully do some meaningful work before ending up muttering "gothic textura quadrata" endlessly in my sleep
  

• Practical work

1. Pen Control Work/Warmup
Each morning beginning with 1 page of circles, drawn as per Bill Hildebrandt's Flourished Calligraphy.
When I reach 100 a minute, I'll be able to move from pencil to pointed pen and try and do the required number in ink without a re-dip.
Only after that do I get to move onto broad pen.
And then the 'partial loop' shapes he shows- months down the track.

Doing this in the past for a couple of months helped my pen control a lot. I stopped in when I started work on "The Second Coming" and want to re-commence it.

This also serves as warm-up.

2. Script Practise

Start back with a few days of basic work, while I am doing the script analysis of the first script.
This means straight lines, diamonds, quadrata shapes. Paul mentioned that my diamonds were not consistent in just touching the baseline. Lots of 'i's then
A good talking book, to save me dying from boredom.

After that, script practise using the exemplar from the first script analysis with especial reference to the problems that Paul mentioned.

-------- Ask Paul for a review when I feel ready----------

Then the other two script analysis so I can learn their scripts.

Paul recommended that I start work on Batarde, as a break between them. I'll have to think about that more later on.

2. Illumination work

a.. Daily work - Practise the white work exercises provided (once again) by the wonderful Mistress Katarina Helene, from

http://meisterin.katarina.home.comcast.net/whitework.html

-- I also want to learn how to paint the whitework that appears in the interior of illuminated letters. It looks like acanthus from both directions as it flows down the bar.

I need to get paint on my fingers occasionally, or I go into withdrawal.

b. Major pieces -- I'm thinking about whether or not to reproduce a page of each of the 3 mss, or just one. It will depend on the variance between the 3, I think. I'll be doing at least one.I have a feeling that I'll feed that I have to do all 3.

For fun and for a break

- Paint a grotesque or two.

- Make the Copic book.

Right now, I've started back on circles and basic skills in G.T.Q. today
Searched on the Net for images of the 3 mss, with little success yesterday
Next, to go through my books looking for images of them. I have a feeling that I may have to bother the Scribes.

I still have to write up some details of The Second Coming, plus finish my Shading and Highlighting piece. Done 10-12th October

From the entry about Paul's critique, I also need to

* add various comments to my notes Done

* research on the meaning of 'burnish' and how 'brown' fits in

* think more on gathering examples of pen flourishing. Doing this later when I'm studying pen flourishing again

* find out what happened with my script analyses for the Second Coming Done, 10th October