Christmas Greetings

 Hand still recovering but here's a card 

accidenta n hiatus

All posts patreon rewards and other xmas art undergoing further delays due to this ! 

the good and the bad

The good news

 I have starting designing ecards for xmas cards.

The bad news 

I have no fresh new ideas so this blog s on hiatus until I have stuff finished 

However I am anning something 

Please  view older posts and come back next week ! 

Only Insert Number of DAYS TO

#christmas #ecard #humour #irony #xmas 

You can help an artist pay for her xmas shopping by pledging to her Patreon Please?

There will be more Christmas cards soon ! 

Visit and View MY PAtreon - JVartndesign

 

NOVEMBER @)@!

 #november #2021 Headers

This is goin up on my Patreon

Isn't it wonderful what you can do in #inkscape with one word many fonts and filters !

Visit MY PATREON JVartndesign to view this and 

download it and other DIGITAL DELIGHTS 

Free or $1 or a $5 mega tier 

Remembrance DAY

REMEMBRANCE DAY ART HAS BEEN POSTED TO MY DEVIANTART AND PATREON !!!

 

11.11.11 - remebrance day

 #remembranceday #November11

It's coming 

11-11-11

Who else is working on 

Remembrance / Veterans / Armistice ?

Here's two of my older works !

I'll hopefully have time to do a couple for this year !

Inktober - Hessel Gerritsz - Etching

#ruisdael #etching #landscape 

I hope these educational posts are helpful even if its just saving any of my followers or visitors time scrolling thru Google Image Search? Let me if it helped. I wasnt at work today so I got to catch up scheduling the posts but I may have to put this blog on hiatus closer to Christmas. 

I don't have enough followers or Adsense income to make this a full time job so let me know has this blog helped even if just giving you something to enjoy looking at? 

This is Hessel Gerritsz ' Etching of Summer Aetas. It caugh my eye because it reminded me of the some of the Summer theme illumined mansucripts I was looking at earlier this year and last year especially some by simon Bening.  

Gerritsz was one of those artists also notorious for copying other works and for perhaps being too productive and profiting from the interest in prints from the middle classes of the Netherlands who could not afford to commission paintings but wanted artworks for their homes.

INKtober - Rembrandts 3 Trees

 Inktober

Perhaps the most famous example of a Print that is also a Drawing directly onto the Tablet is Rembrandt's Three Trees which combines Etching Engraving and Drypoint in one work.

Inktober and Prints and Drawing.

 Before there were Prints and Tablets and Internet the drawing tablet was often a plate of copper or iron for etching and engraving as well as wooden engravings.

One of the most noted early Netherlandish engravers was Pieter Breughul the Older who before he shifted back to the paintings he is famous for spent about a decade being known for drawings and engravings.

This one is a drawing but it is very typical of his engraving style as he seems to have done drawings copied by others onto engraving plates and this particular drawing shows the the influence of Bosch.

The work is called Desidia - Sloth in English.

Inktober - Ruisdael Etching

 Many of the painters of the 17th century Dutch "Golden Age" were also printmakers or created drawings copied for prints. The similarity of his drawing style to his paintings suggest strongly that Jacob Ruisdael drawn onto the etching plate himself. 

House by a Little Bridge Jacob Ruisdael - more "linear" than Rembrandt.

emergency schedule change

Hello fans and followers I just have time to dash off a quick note of explanation.

This blog is moving to either weekly or maybe even being on hiatus due to a sudden change of a start date for a casual contract. 

Do have some things to share but ...

ART Flow "ink"

Ornate October

I would like to suggest for those of those not into drawing while we should use #inktober to improve our skills with traditional or digital "ink" another option might be promoting #OrnateOctober sharing patterns or abstracts or maybe illuminated initials or some form of ORNAMENT ? 

Im drawing neanderthals again but I will do some fractals too?

Whichever you opt for have a great month of creativity.

EGYPTIAN SIBILANTS

EGYPTIAN SIBILANTS 

 Here are the uniliteral glyphs or if you prefer signs the Egyptians used to write the "S" sounds in their language. Oddly enough the "sh" symbol in its cursive form which I showed you in an earlier post may have been the origin of our S rather than the door bolt symbol. NO S is not a snake! 

Do you know what this symbol is ?

 A test. Do you know what this symbol is? 

It's a sibilant and a fricative but which one? 

SIBILANT SYMBOLS

#ipa #symbols #sibilants 

 

These are the most common

IPA and other SYMBOLS for SIBILANTS

s ʃ ś ş š ɕ ʂ

generally written as s or sh or with one of the diacritics shown.

I will be posting this as a pdf on my metousia patreon soon. 

The Ancestor of S?

 

THE ANCETOR OF S 

The theme for the rest of this month is the letter S

This is from the #Egyptian #Hieratic #script and it is one of the ancestors if not the ancestor or prototype or source of our modern letter S. Looking over Egyptian hieroglyphs and their hieratic forms I can see several candidates for S, all signs representing words that start with s or sh.

But how can this have become S?

Somehow over the centuries as the first Alphabets developed the letter forms altered rotating sideways and becoming less angular.

More on this next time.

EARLY BILINGUAL TEXT

 #bilingultext #early print book  #german #latin 

Here's another example of an early printed book with bilingual text. The coloring may have been added by hand or by woodblocks over the printing. 

1499 PRINTED PSALTER

 #psalter #earlyprintedbook #german #latin

GERMAN PSALTER - EARLY PRINTED BOOK 

 

This one caught my eye while browsing for new images to share because it was printed in Latin but with a German translation. It is a beautiful example of typeface design and a practical legible layout !

Note though while the font includes W the printer or writer has used V for u as well as umlaut U and the "LONG" form of S but v if the v is initial in some words ! 

Mainz Psalter

 MAINZ PSALTER 

#mainz #psalter 

Back to my series on psalters. This is an early printed book. Yes PRINTED the Archbishop who commissioned this paid the printers to add color using woodblocks over the printed black letters. From what I've read there was only one print run and the various copies were distributed to the main cathedral and various nearby churches and  monasteries within his diocese. It was not a trend picked up on because of the expense. 

Note the font type. These were intended to be used not just displayed.

BYZANTINE GRIFFIN

#griffin #byzantine #sculpture 

GREEK ART DOES NOT JUST MAGICALLY

 STOP AND START AT THE CLASSICAL ERA. 

It is a continuum.

Jumping forwards a few centuries here is an example that shows how Byzantine art may have influenced Islamic art and how the ancient griffin carvings of Mesopotamia influenced both.

Note the interlacing and the stylised plants and vines forming frames within frames emphasizing the griffin by filling in the background. This very leonine griffin has a birds talons on its forelegs but leonine rear paw and haunches and a mane plus the now traditional raptors beak and ears pointing forwards.

Let me know if you are finding this collection of images useful or enjoyable whether you are an illustrator seeking references or a scholar. Most of my collection came from Wikimedia Commons if you need large sizes go there!

 

BEAUTY AND USABILITY

 BEAUTY AND USABILITY

A brief manifesto or just some ideas

It is very trendy to have a "mission statement".

 I however prefer to have principles that can be applied.

My aim via writing or imagery is to share things and moments that are beautiful or useful and ideally both. Yes like other artists I do not always succeed. 

That art could be a blog or post an answer to another's question or a piece of crochet like a belt or a headband for my personal use or a well cooked cake or curry yet also a photo shared via Instagram or DeviantArt or an abstract print on Red Bubble or a pdf with notes on Plutarch or sharing some one else's art.

Then again there is the problem of critique. It may not be beautiful to rebuke propaganda as lies or porn as sexist but it is useful and when someone claims porn is art when it is badly drawn and seems to have no purpose but making money off borderline budding incels whose idea of a cute girl looks like a 14 year with the breasts of a woman breast feeding and other "art" that is BAD in terms of aesthetic quality as in lacking any, poor drawing or coloring technique that's derivative and cliched, and an ethical violation in ways a left wing feminist and a conservative can agree on .... well! 

I am not going to provide as even a description other examples of porn. I will state I do not regard all "adult" content that is sexual as porn. I believe that arguing even erotica is just soft porn and that we should accept all porn as okay to show "support" for sexworkers or for being "sex positive" ignores the fact some kinks fetishes fantasies and desires possibly indicate you need therapy and should not be fed and indulged to the point of excess? Meden agan Nothing Excessive as the Delphic Proverb says.

and no I am not going to tell you which artists whose work includes NSFW content I do like. 

Follow my twitter feed if you want to work that out. You will notice the ones I like have excellent drawing and story telling skills. My tastes are very broad and eclectic anyway. 

Let us return to my prime statement 

Art should be both beautiful and useful ideally. 

How do we achieve this?

Whatever your medium of production or chosen genre I try to teach people this :

KNOW YOUR MEDIUM whether its pixels or paint, yarn or dye or stone.

and by know I mean both practice and science if possible!

STUDY THE GREATS 

Look at those who came before you. Think about how and why their styles work. Do not just COPY but analyse and learn some art history. Do not tell people anime is okay and its part of Japanese culture and use that as an excuse to draw sexist maidservice hentai waifu nonsense. Especially not if you don't have the faintest idea about Japanese culture apart from what you have seen in your favorite manga and don't even know who Basho or Shikibu were or the difference between ikebana and inyo.

Look at Utamaro or Hokusai or Calligraphy. Think about the difference between woodcut block printing and ink on silk or paper and a digital tool controlling pixels.  

Look at Gothic cathedrals or Greek sculptures or Baroque masterpieces using tone or cartoonists or flowers and birds or Botticelli or Michelangelo or Masanobu. 

DRAW  Whether you sketch via a camera lens or doodle on the back of an envelope or make lines in the sand with a stick or your foot at the beach or ripple patterns in a pond with your hand DRAW

And please have a collection of reference material ! 

Books Photos Downloads from Google or Wikimedia Shells Flowers Retro Clothing Feathers!

CULTIVATE YOUR MIND AND SPIRIT

Have you noticed how many great artists had some kind of spiritual belief even if often heterorthodox?

Or an interest in poetry or music or philosophy. Catholic or Taoist mysticism. Zen and other forms of  Buddhism. Neoplatonic philosophy. Pantheism. Mathematics as a form of beauty? The rhythm of music and its links to color. Jungian Archetypes. Follow a WAY ? 

LASTLY getting back to ethics YES AGAIN ...

Even if you have a great  REP or AGENT or trustworthy clients and customers and fans who will NOT steal from you COPYRIGHT LAW learn about it and CONTRACTS and read the FINE PRINT and be very careful if you are doing "FAN" art and selling it ! 

ops too much Beatus Vir

An apology to my followers or visitors  Im trying to manage doing an online workshop course with bouts of sciatica leading to back and hip pain and other problems. 

I'll do some extra posts to make up for this ! 

More Beatus Vir

 #BeatusVir #illuminatedManuscripts #Calligraphy #psalters

MORE BEATUS VIR 

From Approx 1250 and probably a Flemish studio or scribe  

Note that the scribe has included both King David playing a harp and a younger David slaying Goliath below making use of the two circles within the B to frame images creating frames within frames 

Beatus Vir - approx 1250

 BEATUS VIR - APPROX 1250 AD  #beatusvir #psalter 

Here is a Beatus Vir in which color is more important than ornament. Note the use of gold and blue the two most expensive pigments and the two images with the top one being David playing his harp and the bottom a younger David chopping off Goliath's head. The layout of the letter is also noteworthy as the illuminator had to deal with the problem of making the Be fit into a frame with room for pictures but also fitting in in the rest of the phrase  ... eatvsvirnote the usage of V for U and the style of the A. 

Beatus Vir from the Ludwig Psalter

 This is one of the oldest BEATUS VIR pages from the 9th century AD

No this is not Irish though perhaps an Irish artist trained the monks in Germany where this was produced? You can certainly see the Irish influences in the interlaced patterns and the bird heads!

More Beatus Vir images as I find them! 

Wikipedia Commons is one good place to look but don't forget to check other sites.

And cross check them. Some images appear on several sites but have varying quality of digization of the photos used.

THE SOUNDS OF J

 THE SOUNDS OF J

#letter J #sounds #orthography 

As designers and typographers or students thereof perhaps we should be glad we only have to worry about letter forms and shapes and not orthography. 

Especially for languages other than English:

The Sounds of J
	J /dʒeɪ/	Letter form J < I < iota < yod
Other languages that write /dʒ/ as J include: Hindi Pashto Malay Somali Telugu Scots Zulu	/dʒ/ voiced post alveolar affricate	Originally written as “cg” in Old English shifting to dg and then J in the Middle Ages
	However in some languages the letter J represents /x/ /h/ or /ʒ/ or /y/

Yes the letter J has been used to represent all those sounds !

Yes initial J in English is usually not /y/ but  /dʒ/ !

Possibly the example of orthography not seeming to match usage might be the Spanish usage of spelling words like Jesus or Julio and other words with a J altho its pronounced as /x/ or sometimes /h/ .

Why is this so? Well to simplify things basically PIE ProtoIndoEuropean doesn't seem to have used initial J sounds of any kind but rather a g or gh  that changed to a variety of sounds including j or y or z or dz etc . Hence the diversity of spellings in modern European and other languages.

Summer Hours

 SUMMER HOURS

While this is probably the most famous example of an illustration from a Book of Hours for the month of July it is also very typical as if you google search images for July+illuminated manuscripts you will get a great many images of varying quality with similar images of peasants and farmers reaping summer cereal crops and shearing sheep. The only odd thing is that the farmer and his wife or the woman shearing can afford clothing dyed lapis lazuli blue but perhaps this is simply the patreon showing off the ducal wealth that allows him to buy the most expensive blue mineral pigment for his illuminators ? That would explain other summer scenes using a much more restrained palate of colors ?

Woodcut J

 #woodcut #letterJ #15thcentury #initial #typography 

WOODCUT J AND 

July J and some thoughts on books and blogging.

Those who have been following glyphika for a while may have noticed I sometimes use the initial letter of a month as inspiration for themes? And it is July.

J as a letter form may have changed out as a lengthened I but it soon developed ornate forms like this one from a French 15th century woodcut illustration for a book. 

One reason for these ornate wide forms may have been that some woodcut illustrations had color added by hand or simply that the carving and  inking process for wood followed for less detail than the so to be introduced metal engraving plates? 

Another thought although fully colored illuminated manuscripts were luxury items for the wealthy there were varying grades of book and text copying from the fully painted Book of Hours of the wealthy through to copies of texts with just a few pages colored or just initial letters to copies that were just ink on paper or black and white drawings with no color.

Though these cheapest copies were expensive which is why we see images of private libraries with only one or two shelves of books! Such as this German painting of St Luke !

Printed books supported literacy. Gutenbergs press might there was a boom on woodcut production and artists designing for them since publishers soon realised there was a demand of pictures plus words not just for pamphlets and newsheet but a variety of books.

And even further ...

this morning I am typing on a laptop into a blogging template. No ink No paper. So Google and the Internet and tagging and yet still just one scribe working on a page! 

Screen Savers for YOU

 #screensavers #digitalpainting 

Visitors and followers when Im not doing #inkscape demos amongst teh other types of art I do are experiments with screensavers 

I'm mostly doing these in 16 - 9 ration but some are 4-3 

You can get either FREE or $1 downloads from my JVartndesign Patreon along with other art.

Do consider a visit or a pledge even ?

Thinking About Summer

 Thinking about Summer 

#isaacLevitan #russian 

A DAY IN JUNE ISAAC LEVITAN

Thinking about Joy and Filters

 #joy #filters #inkscape #demo  

JUNE 

What starts with J?

Joy and Inkscape's 3 Jelly Filters 

If you want copies I may put some of these up on my JVartndesign Patreon If theyre not up when you visit scroll down and check older posts.

Kasumi Two

 Posting KASUMI TWO partly yo claim copyright and partly to remind anyone visiting I also do digital painting/ illustrations design whatever you want to call it with Inkscape

Copyright J. Vaux 2021 

birthday break 2021

I am taking a short break for my birthday 

Please scroll down and enjoy older posts 

New works coming in June 

Madonna of the Roses

 Madonna of the Roses 

Madonna of the Roses - yes its so very northern with its contrasts of white skin and red roses 

Spring flowers and the Virgin in a Garden.

One final May ? Spring theme image. 

Images of the Virgin in a garden feature in European art of the Middle ages and I find myself wondering if many were simply an excuse to paint gardens and spring flowers especially when I see images like this ? Yes the flowers and other things in the image will porbably mostly symbolic and can be interpreted several ways but those marginal flowers dominate !

ENJOY

 

Maying by Boat

Another Image of Maying

Notice the details.

Dancers in the background.

Riders returning to a town with branches of fresh new spring greenery.

The flute player accompanying a female lutenist.

The two rowers.

It's a late 15th century work and although it was for a Book of Hours its theme of May features thoroughly secular imagery. 

Enjoy.

 

Flemish Flower painting

FLOWERS FOR MAY

Our may theme is Maying and Flowers 

Flemish depictions of still lifes and flowers did not start in the 16th century. They date back to illuminated manuscripts like this Flemish Book of Hours with a page featuring flowers and butterflies and angels and the Virgin Mary on one page facing another page with a drawign of a strange battle between woodwoses and knights and other odd creatures.

Levina Terlincks portrait of Mary Sidney

#LevinaTerlinck 

Levina Terlinck a Flemish miniaturist who moved to the English court of Elizabeth painted a large number of portraits of various courtiers but sadly many of them have been sad.

Yes thats why the image quality of this is a bit blurry Its a photo of a miniature which I have enlarged just a bit in an effort to give you some idea of the precision and detail of this work.

Note the fine composition.

Teerlinck is thought to have trained Hilliard. She was the daughter of noted illuminator Simon Bening.

And yes this is Mardy Sidney / Dudley Countess of Pembroke the writer and patroness of other writers. 

MAI by Simon Bening

 SIMON BENING _MAI 

#may #mai #illuminatedmanuscript #manuscript #simonbening #flemish #maying 

There is a tradition or tropeor theme or whatever you want to call it of Illuminated Manuscripts featuring scenes of Early Summer "MAYING" excursions into the countryside to enjoy the pleasant spring weather and flowers and gathering branches for decorations.

This gouache watercolor is by Simon Bening a Flemish painter and while he has included aristocrats or townsmen on horse back holding branches they have gathered he has also featured a boatload of musicians and singers and captured the shimmer of sunlight on water!

RUFILLUS - YET AGAIN

 I've posted a few times about Rufillus 

#Rufillus #Scribe #illuminatedmanuscript

This one doesnt not seem to be a self portrait but a picture of another monk holding up a book.

We see however Rufillus' liking of red for outlines his humor and his liking for ornamenting letters at the middle with smaller areas of even more detail but all carefully balanced.

More Rufillus - Breaking the Fourth Wall !

 MORE RUFILLUS 

#Rufillus #illuminatedmanuscript #portraits

Rufillus snuck a self portrait into another part of a text. 

Enclosed within a letter D we see him either writing on a long piece of paper or possibly scraping and preparing a length of parchment.

I rather like the cheeky touch of Rufillus' shoes resting on the edge of the letter and the way he seems to be almost leaning forward to show us his writing tools.

BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL !

Gibbings - Medium and Style

Style and Medium are related. 

This is a page from a book written and illustrated by Robin Gibbings.

Note the linear style and how varying thicknesses of line create texture and tone.

Gibbing was a 20th printmaker and that and his engraving training and practice interact with his drawing style.

Whether you are a printmaker or illustrator you might want to google more examples of his work? 

Rufillus' R

#illumined letter #R #Rufillus #illimunedmanuscript 

RUFILLUS ' R  

Rufillus who if his self portrait is accurate was indeed a "little red",  Rufillus being a form of Rufus, has used red and blue together to create the RE of what appears to the Latin word Regnan.

He has filled the top of the R with a beautiful knot pattern and a winged serpent that becomes a mans head carries our eye down into the rest of the text.

This image is also worth studying for showing us details of a scribe at work. We can see his pots of paint and stool and the artists reaching forward with a pan of red paint as if he is still painting the letter!  Or is he telling us he also painted other things too? 

R is for Resurrection

 #letter R #resurrection #illuminatedletter

R is for Resurrection 

Since the dominant theme of the the posts for this blog is normally typography and lettering here for Easter is an example of the letter R used to frame an miniature image of the Resurrection. 

some horrible person seems to have cut this out of an older manuscript but this fragment ended up in a major museum collection who kindly digitized and shared it online.

Note ther use of red to complement the gold and the knotwork of older styles giving way to the use of plants for details. The depiction of soldiers wearing mail coats suggests this was part of a French manuscript to me. 

I hope this gives you ideas for your own illumined manuscripts hand painted or digital? 

Altdorfer's Resurrection compared to 2 other works

 #Altdorfer #resurrection 

ALTDORFER'S RESURRECTION compared to others

THREE GERMAN PAINTINGS

You might want to compare this resurrection by Altdorfer to the depiction by Grunewald or Bouts!?

Grunewald

For Palm Sunday 2021

 #Palm Sunday #2021 #lorenzetti #fresco

Some of you may have noticed I like to share famous works of art at Easter and Christmas.

Here's a famous Renaissance painting

Why did I pick this one to share.

I love the look on the donkeys face trying to figure out why its suddenly the centre of attention?

It also shows the importance of research. The painter had apparently seen palm leaves but not palm trees!

 #teamtheotherguy 

Copyright J. Vaux 2016 2021 

It gives me great pleasure to announce that someone had the good taste to appreciate the ironic phrasing of the words in this design. Whoever your other guy is enjoy wearing this!

If you would like to see other typographic and letter based designs I have please visit RED BUBBLE

Chi- Rho Design

#easter #chirho 

Just a little something I put up for Easter a few years back.

Its a Chi-Ro a symbol for Christ -ch is one letter in Greek and R or Rho looks like a P! 

I may redo this or do a few new ones

 

PI DAY! MARCH 14

 #pi #piday #march14 

Today and tomorrow in other time zones is PI DAY - march 14  so 

I may also add this to my Deviant Art ? 

Pattern Prose - Hebrew Example

 MENORAH MADE OF LETTERS

Alphabetic scripts are particularly good for shaping prose or poetry into patterns.

In this example the Hebrew script has had its letters arranged to shape a menorah a candlestick with branches. Think about whether you could do something similar with English? 

 Think 

Pattern Poems and Herbert and the Rotation Tool

 

Pattern Poems are not unique to Herberts' Works but George Herbert created one of the best known examples.

Herbert was also a gifted musician known for playing the lute and the half lines and refrains of popular song may have influences his and other Elizabethean experiements with this form.

It however was not printed like this You have to turn the page sideways to see the pattern. 

This brings me to the Rotation Tool found in many software apps.

With the Rotation Tool a Text box or a block of Text saved as an object can be rotated to a variety of angles.

Which brings me to a question and challenge : What use have you made of the Rotation Tool ?

Or you can just enjoy the layout of the poem.

Yes that shape is meant to be wings.