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The Bible of Illuminated Letters: A Treasury of Decorative Calligraphy (Quarto Book) |  | Author: Margaret Morgan
Creator: Rosemary Buczek
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $15.51
as of 9/6/2010 03:09 MDT details
You Save: $9.48 (38%)
New (25) Used (12) from $13.54
Seller: pbshop
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 47370
Media: Spiral-bound
Edition: 1
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 6.7 x 1.1
ISBN: 0764158201
Dewey Decimal Number: 745.61
EAN: 9780764158209
ASIN: 0764158201
Publication Date: January 27, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The ancient art of illuminating manuscripts is currently attracting many new enthusiasts among artists, art students, and lovers of calligraphy. The Bible of Illuminated Letters is a volume they'll all want to add to their collections. It presents step-by-step instructions for recreating twelve illuminated alphabets. Among them are Celtic, Saxon, Gothic, Romanesque, Modern Revival, and seven more, including several modern scripts. Detailed diagrams instruct on creating upper- and lower-case letters, as well as on ways for designing borders and decorations. More ambitious students can also follow clear directions for gilding--decorating with gold leaf--as was originally done in medieval European monasteries. Readers and students of illumination who open this book will find: a history of illumination; required tools, techniques, and materials for illuminating; instruction in layout and design; and steps to follow in order to create 12 alphabet styles. This beautiful book also features a picture gallery of outstanding historical and contemporary illuminated letters, as well as a glossary and index. More than 400 inspiring color illustrations in total.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
Great book for intermediate "scribes" April 13, 2007
J. Wagner
29 out of 30 found this review helpful
I wish I could recommend this book for complete beginners, but I can't. Some of the techniques in this book will require lots and lots of practice (as it did me) to get up to speed. You can't just jump right in and turn out a beautiful illuminated manuscript on the level of "The Book of Hours".
To get going, I'd purchase a learning book on the art of calligraphy (which is plenty of fun on its own, and beautiful to boot!) with lessons, otherwise you'll wind up in the position of creating a nicely illuminated letter and the botch the calligraphic text, losing all your hard work. By all means, get this book to add the beautiful finishing touch of illumination to your work once you're happy with your writing.
In all, this book covers what you'll need to start illuminating, the techniques and pitfalls you'll meet along the way, some calligraphy techniques, and the styles of illumination from Gothic to contemporary.
With modern examples in full color July 22, 2006
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
Plenty of books describe the literature and art of illuminated letters but few provide instructions for recreating illuminated alphabets from six historical periods, as does THE BIBLE OF ILLUMINATED LETTERS. Each section explores how these letters can be adapted to create a personal style, with modern examples in full color enhancing step-by-step color photos of production.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Excellent! July 19, 2006
K. Milici (Northern New Jersey)
15 out of 17 found this review helpful
This is a step by step guide on how to illuminate letters, from the basic supplies needed to the finished product, with chapters on letterforms popular by century. Very informative and inspiring, easy to understand, with lots of pictures. Once you own it, you will never lend this to anyone! A fabulous addition to the artist's library...
I wish I would have had this years ago February 25, 2008
L. Phillips (Michigan)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a struggling illuminator and scribe for the SCA, I find this book to be a teacher when I need one and a great beginner to advanced book for callig and especially illumination. Due to time constraints and the fact that I am a willing, but poor (in talent) paint and ink artist, I haven't spent much time in art classes. This book has helped me get through more than a few hurdles I have had and inspires me to do more. This book was well worth the money and I would highly recommend it to others.
Indispensible for any artist or bookmaker December 29, 2008
little red hen (California, USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I highly recommend this book to any fine or graphic artist, even if you are not into calligraphy or have any intension of doing any artwork resembling classic illumination.
I went to art school for many years, divided my time between both fine arts and visual communication, and this book is glorious review encapsulated in between two covers. There is stuff covered that I wish I had been taught in the seven years I went to art school! Morgan's book discusses everything from different types of paper, finding the "grain" and why it is important to making one's own gesso and egg tempera paints. It discusses the difference between the many types of materials for gilding with step-by step photographed instructions, including how to pick out vellum and prepare it for your work. It warns you of pitfalls and common mistakes and how to avoid and correct them. It even discusses layout and paste-up and the importance of preliminary work and preparing your work space. The first half of the book is about tools and techniques and the second half is devoted to specific types of alphabets, their history and step-by-step photographs and instructions on their execution.
Though this book is not for a typical scrap-booker that is looking for a quick way to make fancy decorations in between batches of cupcakes, it is an almost complete curriculum for the art of illumination in a book*. It goes through advanced art techniques step by step making them easy to understand so that you feel comfortable enough to begin practicing these. It is a great primer on the tools most artists use or may have questions about including: paper, vellum, parchment, brushes, pens, gouache, watercolor, egg tempera, inks, flat gilding, raised and burnished gold, shell gold, metallic gouache and powders. It is also a great melding of the disciplines of both fine and graphic arts and thus serves as a fantastic reference to any fine or graphic artist or bookmaker.
*I say "almost complete" in that I found the sections of "Drawing the Decorated Initial" and "Placing Capitals on the Page" in Margaret Shepard's book CAPITALS FOR CALLIGRAPHY as important information that I found wanting in Morgan's book. These two books together are very good companions to one another--especially because Shepard's book goes over basic calligraphy in a bit more depth.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
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