DOMESTIKA COURSE – HEBREW CALLIGRAPHY – A SETBACK, THEN STEAMING AHEAD
A major error
After I had done my original draft, I discovered that I’d made a major error with the Hebrew, leaving out about a line and a half of text. I had got so caught up with layouts and grids that I neglected the most important thing! Calligraphy is decorative lettering. Letters make words. Words communicate. If they don’t make sense, then neither does the calligraphy!
I was very glad that I discovered this before I got into the serious business of the inking.
My plans for the Domestika courses that I’ve chosen were that I’d complete one a month. With everything else going on this month, I had got rather behind with this course, and had pretty much given up on being able to complete it before the month was out. However, I’ve had a quiet couple of days and had caught up with my cooking and other chores, so I was able to spend some uninterrupted hours in the studio, and I really cracked on.
Redoing the grid
I am quite glad that this has happened, because I decided to follow the directions from the Mandala course I did with Domestika, and also the Islamic art one. The idea is to do a draft on printer paper and then trace it. Once you are happy with it, it can go straight onto the best paper. With my first attempt with this project, I had already started working on the good paper and had drawn the guide lines. This proved to be a mistake, because the paper is very unforgiving, and I wasn’t able to erase the lines easily.
Yesterday I spent some time practising the blackletter script, using Jake Rainis’ guide grids. He designed these for the 3.8 mm Pilot Parallel pen. This size is fine for larger text, but I was going to work with the 2.4 mm pen which has just arrived, and I had no guide grids for that. I used my desktop publishing software to create a grid, which also has vertical lines to help keep the letters upright. I made one grid with bold lines which would show through a tracing on the light panel, and then another one with faint lines for practice. I printed out several of these.
Back to the project
Yesterday I worked on the draft for the calligraphy project. I had written out the blackletter text at the smaller scale.. I made several mistakes, but marked on the sheet where I would need to move it to get it right on the tracing. Centring is easy with the light panel, because you can move a line of text and then trace it where it is supposed to be. A light panel is a huge time-saver when transferring designs.
The Hebrew text
Here is the text in my Hebrew Bible – Isaiah chapter 46, verses 9 and 10.
As before, I worked out the spacing of the letters and allocated each one a box. I also laid out the grid for the blackletter text underneath, according to the measurements for the 2.4 mm pen.
The Hebrew letters are just sketched in really roughly at this stage. In order to get the spacing precise, so that they wouldn’t touch each other, I needed to give the lines some thickness. I thought that a carpenter’s pencil would be a good tool, but I haven’t got one, so I improvised!
I found some leads for my mechanical pencils and stuck two of them together with an elastic band.
Instant “calligraphy pencil”!
Here’s the result on the draft. I also spent some time perfecting the design for the central “El” (God) which would be gilded. When this was done, I traced the blackletter text from my practice sheet, using the light panel.
This time, I was meticulous, checking that I’d got the Hebrew correct, looking at every single letter alongside the printed text!
The draft blackletter text. This was traced directly from my practice sheet, and I have added arrows to indicate where certain elements need to be relocated.
The tea dyed paper
Because the first sheet was spoilt, I did another one. Once the initial tea dyeing was dry, I spattered it with some more tea to produce some “age spots” on the paper. Even though it had been under heavy books for over 24 hours, when I added these, it buckled again.
Tracing onto the tea dyed paper
This paper is quite thick, and sometimes it was difficult to see the details clearly. I kept referring to the text. (I started inking before I remembered to photograph this stage – hence the first line!)
The Hebrew text inked
I was able to go over it with the Tombow mono eraser and very gently remove any visible tracing lines without damaging the paper.
The inking complete
Gilding
After the text inking was complete, I began work on the illuminated “El.” I used my favourite gold acrylic paint: Golden’s iridescent bronze fine fluid, and it worked a treat. I used my new Pro-Arte fine outliner brush that I bought for the Islamic art course. Additional detailing was done with archival ink pens.
I also added the vowel points in and around the Hebrew letters, using the same gold paint. The teacher suggested we did these in gold, and it’s very effective. There were no vowels in the original text but these were added later to aid pronuncation. The little dots and dashes do not interfere with the layout of the letters, and they are quite unobtrusive, especially in gold.
Here’s a closer look. Some of the vowel points look bright white in this photo.
I added some illumination to the blackletter text as well.
As always, the gold is difficult to photograph. It’s hard to see that the initial “R” is outlined in gold.
The completed piece
I am very hapy with ow this has turned out, and especially that I was able to complete it so quickly after the setback.
Plans for framing
I discovered a Hebrew calligrapher online who has a beautiful way of presenting his work. This has inspired me to do something similar. I was hoping tbe able to mount the piece on some dark mountboard but I haven’t got a piece large enough. I plan to prepare the piece and photograph it, and then upload it to the framing site and get them to cut the piece for me, and also provide a frame of my choice.
Watch this space!
