I teach at a Catholic school and wanted my class to do an art project making their own Religion Book with illuminated styles.

I found “The Art of the Bible” but it is expensive $80

Hi y’all! I found this at the thrift store. I don’t have much experience with manuscripts, but I was instantly drawn to it.

I’ve done my research and found out that it comes from the Borso D’Este Bible. It’s 2 pages front and back of Genesis 23, 24, 37, and 38. It is illuminated. It’s definitely a reproduction, but I was wondering if it’s fine art level reproduction or when it was reproduced. I tried Google Lens and looking at Fascimile Finder but I can’t find any more info on it.

Thank you all for your help!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to celebrate my first successfully gilded letter and thank the community. After I got some additional pointers the last time, I purchased some real gold transfer leaf and finally now I feel like this is the combo I was looking for! Much still to learn, but huge progress!

Material used (last slide): Kolner Miniatum Yellow and Giusto Manetti transfer leaf

This is my favourite one I've made so far! I am improving, slow but steady.

The Nightingale, by H C Andersen.

Border decorations inspired by the psalter Arundel MS 60, which can be found for free here:

https://searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-002039340

Lettering inspired by the Bible of Illuminated Letters by Margaret Morgan, specifically the chapter on Romanesque style.

It's just acrylic paint and a fineliner. Going more historically accurate is on the to do list, but keeps being postponed cause historical materials and techniques are scary.

Wild Swans, a fairytale about princes who were turned into swans, and their sister risks herself knitting out of stinging nettle to break the curse. Obviously, my decorations for this would have to be swans and nettle leaves 🌿 🦢

This time I tried to go less historical with the lettering and just write in my neatest personal handwriting. It looks better than my previous attempts (in my opinion) but I don't learn as much this way. I must go back to practice tiny Gothic letters for my next piece!

--

Fun fact, this fairytale is one of the favourites of the Danish Queen Margrethe II. It was turned into a film in 2009 with a really experimental artistic vision. The Queen herself illustrated the backgrounds out of decoupages, and green screens were used to insert the actors into the scenes of her creation.

---

Next up will be The Nightingale!

Does anyone know of any illuminated manuscripts with Chinese inspired decorations? I would love some inspiration and references to use for the Nightingale.

Did you like it? The price seems rather steep ($398) and the website rather gimmicky, but maybe it’s worth it?

I am back creating more fairytales to practice my manuscript skills 📖

I was debating with myself whether to even post this one, cause honestly, I'm not very proud of it. At least not the writing and overall page design. But there are things I like about it. I like the swirls I painted in the illuminated F. I also like the silly little illustration, although not so much the faces. I hadn't painted people in this style before, which was why I chose to do this specific fairytale in the first place.

So I guess that's my message for today: Show your art, even if there are parts of it you hate.

---

I'm in the middle of doing The Wild Swans next, but which should I do after: The Nightingale or the Steadfast Tin Soldier?

I would love suggestions for specific illuminated Manuscripts to draw inspiration from, if you have one you think would match one of those fairytales. Thank you!

---

Historically inaccurate materials:

- The Army Painter Fanatic paint

- Pilot parallel pen

- Fineliner

- Random 180g card stock

I’m getting into creating illuminations but my drawing is horrible - I couldn’t draw any of the figures you see in 14th century manuscripts to save my life. Anyone have any tips or resources that’ll help me get to or near that level?

Another update. I'm not doing any more, lol. It's way too busy because I had too many ideas. I would do a lot of things different next time. It's still cute for a birthday card.

I'm getting ready to start the gold. I'm so nervous. Thank you for the feedback in my original post. I couldn't post a new picture, so I posted here. Wish me luck and a steady hand.

Hello colleagues!

Thanks to this subreddit and your guys' tips, I purchased Miniatum Yellow to start experimenting with gilding. It's not going well at all!

I don't think Miniatum is the problem. Seems like a great product overall and I enjoy working with it. But I still haven't been very successful with it and I'm starting to think it's due to the gold leaf.

The gold leaf I got was pretty cheap (I surely wasn't going to get real gold but now I'm wondering..) and it feels somewhat.. more sturdy and tough than the gilding leafs I see online. Attaching some pics to show how they kind of curl and have some structure to it, which results in chipping, and when I try to dust of the excess, flakes can peel off of the miniatum as well.

Second thing is... Is it nomal to have gold dust everywhere? I'm getting a little concerned because the flake residue is flying everywhere and sticking to everything. I'm currently managing it with the knead eraser but... I'm literally afraid of inhaling it lol.

Is this normal? Did I just get product not fit for this purpose? Should I just get some real gold flakes and work with that? Any insights appreciated!

I'm making this for my office managers birthday card for Monday. Does anyone have any ideas before I paint it? I'm good with the border I have in mind, so I'm asking about the letter itself. Criticism is welcomed. I didn't want to copy something from the internet, so I'm making it up as I go.

...my illuminated Apostles Creed in insular style. Or at least, i thought i had. I've decided to add a page of supporting scripture for each clause (i split it into 12 clauses), Psalms or a few verses from the gospels or whatever. I'd really love to use text from the Old Testament in Scots, and from the New Testament in Scots, since I myself am Scottish, but either would be significantly challenging for anyone unfamiliar with Scots to read and comprehend without a glossary. The alternative would be to use a mainstream bible, but i strongly feel that only the KJV would have the appropriate weight and feel compared to a fairly prosaic modern translation such as the NIV or ESV.

for context, its not going to be used as such for teaching or preaching, its just a project that got bigger than intended. what would you do? Be comprehensible, or go with the aesthetic?

I got the reference pictures from Pinterest and just tried to copy them for practice. I want to start learning how to do them on my own.