Lutrell Psalter Watermill.

 Many of you have probably seen photos of old mill houses often converted into private dwellings or inns or read of their uses in olden days.

The artist who printed this page would have seen an actual working mill though he seems to have positioned the wheel so you can see all of it .

Simon Bening - July

Simon Bening - July 

Summer in northern Europe is also a time for reaping the first spring plantings. 

Bening shows us not only the reapers but across the river a windmill for grinding the harvest and in the distance an exquisite fortified city with a cathedral. 

Now who noticed the two cart horses left to graze while humans fill haywains ? 

 

Under Marswood

another fine example of older style SF paperback covers 

This one is by Darrell Sweet 

some notes on yellow

Some notes on yellow

Did you know most yellows are sulphates or acrylides? 

Summer and Dry Brush

 Summer and DryBrush

Copyright 2022 Julie Vaux

This is a painting but can you tell me in what medium without enlarging the image?

With the variety of brushes available for digital painting I can get this effect without an actual "dry" brush or acrylic or oil paint. The main advantage I'm missing out on is rendering full impasto effects ?

This was done with Procreate.

P.S. It is actually winter where I am in the southern hemisphere and but I was thinking about a summer heat image that suggested moving light.

Another Frontispiece.

Yes another Frontispiece 

Once upon a time author potraits were black and white a d usually faced the title page of a book before technology make it possible to print photos on book covers.

Heres a closeup of the detail in the frame 

Beautiful isnt it ? 

frontispieces in old books

Another example of frontispieces in old books 

The book is a 1937 reprint of a 1821 edition of this work by the 19th c. Writer n poet H.W.Longfellow 

Heres a extreme closeup of part of the title page 

Ballades and Rondeaus

Can you guess how old this book is? 

It dates back to the 1890s and was published in London.

The quality of the paper and binding was extremely high though there is some wear and tear.

Its a final example of design though!

some more detail of the spine 

And an excellent example of late 19th fonts 

Plus a good poetry anthology ! 

Blends Gradients and Biodiversity

So what do Blends Gradients and a book on biodiversity have in common ... ?

Not just this cover !

Yes its a beautiful cover and an excellent example of using gradients. 

I am presuming the designer combined several separate grouped objects with gradient filters into one final layer.

But what inspired this look? 

Who remembers papercut stencils used for dyeing and printing on several materials?

Yes if you are wondering I am old enough to have done this at school! 

How were these done before we had software filters creating gradients or digital pencils for outlines?

Well you had to have a good silkscreen and heavy paper or thin cardboard taped to the silkscreen and to get the range if colors you see on that cover probably use several screens if you were doing it as a poster.

Plus also the need for a good sharp cutting blade and a steady hand.

But for blended colors and gradients with a photoscreen or a resist screen ? 

You had to very carefully apply multiple colors to a brush or spatula and then brush or sponge them together or use a spatula and ... and ...

Using software cuts down on the number of chemicals and the time and its easier to align layers.

So how does this tie in to biodiversity?

Its not just rare food plants or animals or traditional production methods effected by monocultures.

Think about mining for mineral pigments or industrial processing of the pigments that go into modern printers.

What would happen if in order to reduce pollution or because of an ecological or societal collapse we had to go back to only using paper or leather or sheet metal for stencils. 

What if plant varieties lost included dye plants? 

How many people have plants in their area that have roots fruit leaves flowers or bark you can process pignents from for painting or dyeing?

Or a claypit or quarry for minerals like oxides of copper sulphur or iron ? 

Biodiversity is an issue that effects artists too.

And which causes more impact?

Traditional methods if plants are over harvested and not replanted?

Indigo n woad need fertilizer

Saffron yellow needs a whole feld of flowers.

Whichever methods you use please think about biodiversity and pollution and resources 

The Japanese have a word 

Mottonai 

Dont waste 

Recently I ma nbaged to take some more photos of old book covers frintispieces and chapter headinds so expect to see a series of these in upcoming posts.

Also my apokogies for the LOOONG break but I had other projects to finish so follow if you want to see more regular posts please ! 

Why Cyrillic N looks like a H

 #palaeography #cyrillic #ukrainian #scripts 

So you probably been seeing teh slogan Victory to Ukraine a lot lately and in Cyrillic or Romanized.

You may know Slava Ukraini looks like this is in Cyrillic 

both the Russian or Ukrainian versions of Cyrillic 

ϹЛАВА УКРАЇНІ

The C comes from the Byzantine lunate sigma the next letter is an L derived from Greek Lambda in upper case and Beta is a V / W and so forth

So why does N look like a H 

The simplest explanation without going into the full history of Cyrillic and how Greek letters were adapted from Slavic languages ( and I will go into that in a future post ) is that the modern H form has been edited and "reformed" and an N that had a slanting cross bar connecting nearer to the top had the cross bar lowered and why ?

Because Cyril and his brother developed the letters using forms not just from the upper case uncials we see in inscriptions but also hand written Greek Cursive forms. 

So thats the shortest explanation I could come up with.

I promise to do a full comparision for those curious about the relationship of Greek and Cyrillic including why Cyril had to add extra letters.

easter break 2022

I will be uploading flower photos over the weekend to my deviantart n redbubble sites 

Sorry but I had no fresh ideas for easter cards this year 

PALM SUNDAY FRESCO

#palmsunday #entryintojerusalem #renaissanceart

LORENZETTI FRESCO 

Palm Sunday at the end of this week  so I went hunting for relevant images 

I chose this one because of the artists giving the the donkeys facial expressions. The poor mother is looking overwhelmed and hestitant at all the attention and the humans well some  are excited others sceptical serious 

Lorenzetti's style shows echos of the old so called Italo-byzantine techniques and Duccio's works along with some influences of "International Gothic" and a knowledge of Giotto . 

CHERRY FOG

 Lately I have been playing with the #Gimp #fog #filter as an alternate to using Airbrush 

Its sakura time in Japanese and I wanted some interesting cherry pink and white backgrounds for other art so ...

The FOG filter in Gimp can be adjusted for color transparency and turbulence and you can super impose 2 or 3 layers with varying degrees of transparency and rotate and merge the layers.

It occurrs to me that if you are into designing and creating brushes this might be a great way to create brushes for skin and textile tones and shadows using of course different colors?

Look for more cherry pink theme art in this blog and on my patreon  

JVartndesign

this month and next 

MARCH 2022 - B

 MARCH 2022 - B

Easter is coming soon and I have no organised theme ... YET so I'm just shamelessly uploading files form my collection ... enjoy the beautiful details might though be said to be a theme of my blog posts ?

MARCH 2022 - A

 MARCH 2022 

Its Spring in Europe and also the month of the Announciation of the Virgin Mary which gives me an excuse to reshare this beautiful page .

Such a northern spring but so beautiful in detail color and composition.

February - Illuminated Calendar Page

 

Here's one last illuminated calendar page for February 

Compare it to the one I showed you previously for differences in script font layout and technique.

FEBRUARY - Da Costa Hours

 This is a page from a book created by Simon Bening's  studio showing February activities like pruning branches and vines and turning soil.

possibly the river in the background is the Rhine or a tributary ?

February - an Illuminated Manuscript page

 Before we had wall calendars those who could afford them had  brevaries 

A popular page layout was a list of major observances and saints for a month with a picture at the bottom 

You can see a monk perhaps the scribe or illuminator warming himself by a fire !

I suspect the blank lines were to allow the purchasers to add more saints in or other notes at a later time  as there are more saints and observances in February than those listed?

Or perhaps the patron asked to only have his favorites shown?

Fantastic Adventures _ RETRO SF ART

FANTASTIC ADVENTURES 

#retro #coverart #retrosf #sfillustration #tiger #fonts #layout 

 I was looking for art featuring tigers when I found this piece of retro cover art.

Its a good example of retro layout and fonts !

the ship of ishtar

This retro 60s style cover uses a style of kimited colors and bold  contrasts perfect if you consider the small sizes of these paperback covers 

WITHOUT GLAIDNESS

 #dunbar #poem #scotspoetry #typography #williamdunbar #inkscape

WITHOUT GLAIDNESS is the refrain of a poem by William Dunbar 

Copyright Julie Vaux 2021

While the centuries old poem is public domain what I am claiming copyright to is the typographic design and while this is someone else's font I used Inkscape to make certain modifications wanted to give it a handwritten look but feeling using a Gothic or uncial font would be way too cliched.

As usual I have applied and combined 2 or 3 different filters .

If you like this you can get it on merch via my RED BUBBLE

Retro SF covers Two

Unfortunately no artist credit was given for this 1969 paperback edition 

Retro SF covers

Time to emerge from summer hiatus and for my first something new of the year some OLD 

I found some old SF paperbacks at a recent book fair 

yes a genuine ACE Double and an Aussie SF writer featuring Grimes 

Heres some more detail of the cover 

note the Hand painted Tones and the use of Drybrush ! 

I have a few more covers to show you soon !