Painted wings and giant rings

It’s heated. After a number of different lighting options I finally decided to go with a white rope light, and much like many a 2 AM Saturday evening, I’m warming my fingers by its gentle heat.

First attempts at calligraphy using the light desk and a dip pen, not too bad! All of my practice in meetings at work with a cheap felt tip pen have paid off, I may yet some day be able to make a C look proper. Also I really think I prefer a’s written this way. They are so cute. g’s on the other hand I would rather avoid at all costs.

And while I’ve got the light desk out, figured I might as well trace out a bit of the book of kells and try inking directly on bristol board paper through the light desk, which it is entirely strong enough to do, particularly if I turn off the overhead lighting in my room. I also played around some with gouache, which, having been trained for many years in watercolors, we were always taught distaste for it. (“real” painters don’t need white) I have to say think I much prefer my watercolors, though it may be just that it’s a cheap brand of gouache, and my watercolors are top of the line. It just feels chalky, and I hate how it covers the black lines. I think I’m going to go back over them all with the ink and see if that works. I also forgot how much I love doing Celtic knotwork, particularly the ones with the weird animals in them, as you don’t realize quite how amazing it is until you are actually following the thread throughout the piece.

This is the tree of life motif that is pretty common throughout the book. I have no idea what those pod things are supposed to be so I painted them as if they were buds. 
But yeah, nice warm work with a mug of tea for a cold and blustery day. My skin still feels raw from the 20 minutes we spent outside trying to wrap the chicken coop in plastic (which we utterly failed at, I need to go back out tomorrow and screw a board in place, sandwiching the plastic between the board and the coop.)