Here’s another bestiary progress update. With just a handful of pages left to write, the manuscript text is nearly complete. This has me excited to start painting soon. But even if I’ve finished writing, I cannot start on the decoration yet. There’s several preparations I must do, before I’ll be able to do so. So we’ll look into those as well.
Bestiary progress
The video above showcases the tenth quire of my bestiary project! That means I’ve completed exactly 160 pages of my manuscript. There’s only a handful more to go—less than a full quire—before it’s finished. I did decide to redo the first quire, though, since the early pages look a bit too different from the rest. While that adds a few extra pages, it seems trivial after having written hundreds of them.
This makes me feel quite excited, as it means I’ll finally be able to start painting!
Despite the additions, I fully expect to finish the full text this spring. That will also mark the end of the first phase of the manuscript project—preparing and writing all the pages. I’m excited to reach this milestone, as it means I’ll finally start painting soon! I’ve already made the first preparations of gathering and preparing my tools and materials for that very purpose.
Next steps
The next steps in my bestiary project don’t actually involve painting the decorations just yet. First, I want to foliate the pages, photograph them in their current stage, and create an inventory of which animals appear on which pages. This will result in an index that will help me avoid placing the wrong images in the wrong places while also assisting in documenting the manufacturing process.
This will result in an index that will help me avoid placing the wrong images in the wrong places…
Furthermore, I want to think hard about how to share my progress online. It wasn’t particularly interesting to show me writing page after page, which kept the amount of content low. But with the shift to painting miniatures, I believe I have much more engaging things to share. I’m still unsure about how much I want to involve social media, however. The more I focus on content, the less time I’ll have for my bestiary.
Preparations for painting
There’s also the matter of preparing my paints. In the past, I’ve painted directly on framed, sanded parchment using a mixture of water, pigment, and glair. However, this manuscript is meant to be handled. Therefore, I plan to follow Claire Travers’ advice from her book Beginning Illumination and paint over an undercoat of fish glue with distemper:
- Fish glue is, as the name implies, a glue made from fish—specifically, fish hide. It has a well-documented history of use in medieval manuscripts. I expect an undercoat will be especially necessary in my own manuscript, since I’ve consistently struggled with ink bleed ever since I started writing. Without an undercoat, I fear both gesso and paint might not adhere properly.
- Distemper is a medium consisting of egg glair, gum arabic, and honey water. On its own, egg glair is too brittle for use on a flexible surface. Therefore, one adds honey to increase the viscosity of the mixture, preventing cracking. Gum arabic deepens the colors, making them appear richer. This medium also allows me to prepare the paints in advance. I’ll be storing them in seashells.
Finally, there’s considerations I must make about cleaning the pages before the appication of gesso or paint. Since I wasn’t able to know exactly where paintings would appear, I completely dusted each page with gum sandarac. This gum results in a crisper look of the letters, but might cause problems with the adhesion of substances.
In conclusion…
…I can safely say there’s plenty of work ahead of me. While the writing stage is nearing its end, the next phase—painting—introduces a new set of tasks and challenges I’ll need to address. However, I’m definitely looking forward to moving past the monotony of copying text. While meditative, I ready for a different set of activities after nearly two years of copying text.