Workshops with Alison Samain

Alison ran two workshops for Kickstart recently ,both in Leicestershire, looking at illuminated letters.

Using the colours of the medieval period, Green (Malachite) - the nearest now is winsor green, Blue (Lapis Lazuli) replaced today by Ultramarine, and Red (Cinnabar) using Vermilllion or Scarlet lake; we worled in gouache as it is opaque - giving a solid flat colour.

Alison provided participants with archival quality hot press watercolour paper - medieval documents of quality would have been on vellum or parchment which is still available but very expensive. 

Starting with painting techniques used in medievaltimes, participants practised building up blocks of colour using thin layers of gouache mixed with water. Traditionally egg yolk would have been mixed with pigment.

The first thinlayer of paint is very watery - an underpaint to even out the paper - the liquid is 'teased' across the paper working quickly.

each following layer is a little thicker and added on top when the initial layer is dry. This technique was used to add folds in fabric, shadows etc to old paintings.

When working on a letter the gold leaf attaches to anything sticky which can include the paint - so the 'size' the glue, is worked first before adding colour.

We used Miniatum made by Kolner; it goes on pink and you add a drop to the paper and drag it across the space with a fine brush which leaves a little mound of fluid - once the space is filled leave it to set for around 10 minutes minimum. The size must be thoroughly dry before applying the leaf and it will remain open for gilding for up to the next 20 hours. Due to the long open time, overnight drying is advisable to assure the highest degree of lustre.

Once dry you re-invigorate the dried glue by 'huffing' (breathing warm air through a paper tube onto the glue). Put the sheet of gold leaf over the glue and brush over the sheet with a cotton wool pad once - in one direction. Lift the leaf sheet and pass the cotton wool back over the leaf to remove any loose gilding.

This letter D is in lombardic style (1462) and is a Versal - Capital - used at the beginning of verses.

After the gold leaf is completed you can filin the other areas using one or more of the three colours.

Areas can be highlighted in white; three dots would mean the Holy Trinity.

Rosalind Wyatt is one artist to look at who combines calligraphy and stitch.

Look at The St John's Bible for a recent illuminated bible production

A completed letter D from the first workshop

Leicestershire Records Office

The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland played host to two groups of Kickstart participants on 6th and 22nd October 2012.

Adam Goodwin gave an introductory talk on the work of the Archivists and a tour of the building including behind the scenes in the strong room, which houses 10,000 shelves - approx 4.5 miles! Leicestershire falls under the Diocese of Peterborough so many historical records are held there and in Cambridge. Rutland did not begin collecting until the 1960's and with the various political boundary changes over the years their records are now in the Leicestershire storage facility. Annually the archive receives approx 250 new deposits.

The Leicestershire records office began in 1947, originally housed in the building, the basement of which stood where the body of Richard III has recently been discovered.

Wills and parish records are on microfiche, but prior to the mid-1980's parish registeres were produced every day for viewing; Leicester Union Workhouse records exist from 1875. Originally paper was made from rag cloth and Adam showed examples from The Leicester Mercury from 1874 which are in far better condition than those from less than 50 years ago.

The documents available to our group for research included a Quaker marriage certificate from 1860, signed by all member sof the congregation; early village maps of the Rutland area, naming tennants of each field etc. A great seal of Henry II lay alongside the Gretton Family Estates book of lands held, plus a large royal seal of Richard II (the boyking) showing him astride his horse on one side and enthroned on the other.

An original pedigree of the Shirley Family  of Staunton Harold was partially unrolled -at 30 foot long and 13 feet wide, Adam had only seen it unrolled once in its entirety when they took it to the museum at Long walk specifically for the purpose of using the floor space. At that point they had it professionally photographed so you can now view it in sections.

Large poster size letters were on view from 1630's; one Rutland family were ambassadors to Turkey and the letters are signed from Charles II and Oliver P (Oliver Cromwell Protector) - mainly to complain about piracy!

The oldest book on display, believed to belong to Robert, Count of Moulin, was an 1150 copy of an 1107 original book of Town charters, written in Norman French or Latin, giving a grant of rights by the Earl of Leicester at the time of Edward the Confessor, and proves the existence of the Guilds prior to the Norman Conquest, when Freemen ran the town of Leicester.

Generally writers did not start to date documents until after 1290.

Other documents available included Leicester St Martins Church (now the cathedral) Church Wardens accounts written between 1544 and 1647 - a lovely book with metal clasps, the book had been fully restored using paper pulp to reline the paper edges - the accounts were started 60 years after Bosworth , where Richard III was reputed to have died - the document is written in 'secretary hand'.

The Town Hall library collection established in the 16th century at the Guildhall are now with the records office on display from the collection was a copy of John Wycliffes sermons in english.

A book that resembled our modern fascination for altered books was the Sherrand family survey book of the 'Manor of Teigh' - listing the estate properties and tennants in 1597; describing every field strip, tennant name, field name with illustrations and maps. Oxgang was the name given to a strip of land that an ox could plough in a day.  The name Wong referred to enclosed land among open field strips. Each farm may have  enclosures immediately adjoining the farmstead, giving rise to names such as Home Close and Croft.

If you want to take field names further there is a book - English Field names - by John Field.(appropriately).

One of the most recent, but with a very decorative cover was parchment illuminated address from WWI to Thomas Feilding-Johnson a local textile manufacturer.

A map of the manor of Langham was on display from 1624, part of a deposited archive collected form the 1300s that had been stored in 70 tin boxes in a stable,along with the horses.
The Grant of a crest or badge (not  a coat of arms) of the Herick family of Beaumanor Hall from 1590 showed a bulls head, a design common to the area in buidling s and pub signs, sitting alongside the signature of Henry VIII acting in his capacity of Duchy of Lancaster to swap some land ownership in the Beaumont Leys area of Leicester.

Matlock and Lincoln Workshops

Unfortunately our booked artist Diana Syder suffered a family bereavement and was unable to run the first two workshops for us. As it was, due to the nature of the situation, very short notice I decided the only option was to run the workshops myself albeit with no idea what Diana's intentention for the session was.

Taking along my kitchen sink along with everything else I could think of, plus considering the requirements list Diana had provided, everyone was asked to take one small picture, idea, item from the mornings images seen at the archivist, plus either a word, sentence also from the mornings research. We shared the large sheets of paper and using coloured papaers from my stash cut out shapes from the mornings images,  and agreed in groups to place the images appropriately. Everyone then used the balck paint that Diana had suggested and we filled in areas around or over the images, with specific mark making - each individual sticking to the same idea as they moved around, followed by writing the words from the morning.

Everyone moved around and wrote all over everyone else's work! I then added in gold paint - from the illuminated letters and again everyone moved around with a different mark over the black and images. The entire collection was hung (briefly) and then cut up - with everyone getting allotted pieces to continue to work from.

Having been called at such short notice I have to apologise , and/ or thank the recent artist workshops I have attended, whose influences enabled me to do this - including Sarah Burgess, Bobby Britnell and Dionne Swift.

It was a good way of getting to know one another, andproducing something even for those who 'can't draw,' there was no pressure for individual achievment and had an immediacy for the ideas gleaned in the morning. Whether we will see anything in the exhibtion that came from this remains to be seen......

Lincolnshire County Archives 22nd September 2012

 The Lincolnshire archives began in the 1930s gathering photographs; the university had a subject-based archive., whilst the Authority concentrated on area based. Deposits are stored safely and made available to the public.

Currently housed in an old bottle washing plant, they have 6 miles of shelving which carries a huge cost in air handling units, insect monitoring and climate control; there are no water pipes in the vicinity for obvious reasons! The many millions of documents are used for research for dissertations, books, family history etc.

1072 is the earliest document held – a grant to Lincoln Cathedral of land, although the Cathedral keeps much of its old library including illuminated manuscripts.

Coroners, courts and hospitals have to deposit, but most are deposited through good will; very occasionally documents of importance may be purchased but generally there is no budget for this. The Lincoln archive has a laboratory but is only able to contract conservators occasionally.

The Diocese of Lincoln used to extend to the Thames so there is a huge collection overseen by the National Archives, who are leading the world in setting new standards for future data collection and storage. Since the advent of the World Wide Web there is a major change to the way people are looking for and finding documents.

All the documents on display were old, of medieval origin, including fragments of monastic documents – trashed during the Reformation.

Some items have been rebound but many are still in a fragile state, some retaining the original leather or wooden board covers. One book had the edges of all the pages cut off so it would fit the library shelf when it was rebound many years age! Recycling was en vogue back then, one leather cover reused as the cover of an estate inventory.

Administration records from Cathedral laws and customs of the town, sit side by side with deeds, land transactions, documents in Hebrew script, rolls and volumes from 1290. There is even a hymn book in large print!

Medieval music scores, rhyming French texts, medieval Royal pedigrees (propaganda during the Wars of the Roses) parchment, vellum, rag papers, alongside modern wood pulp papers, which arrived in the 19th Century. Strongly acidic wood pulp paper self destructs over time and will not outlive its much older counterpart the rag paper.

Many old documents are written in ink made of old gall, or ground up precious stones and minerals to provide the colours, which because of the expense were only used on Royal or Monastic documents.

A spiked wheel was used to prick lines down the pages to create grid lines for writing, if a mistake was made the writer would scrape the surface off the skin and re-write over; overwriting is a bit more blurred but can clearly be seen on some documents.

Derbyshire County Council Records Office

We visited Matlock on Saturday 15th September 2012. Karen Millhouse gave us an introduction to the work of the records office in Derbyshire, explaining the council's involvment and holdings.

Large houses in the area such as Chatsworth and Haddon hold their own records, but DCC have Calke and Hopton, the Nightingale and Gell family records, house histories, historical maps and plans amongst other things. Karen explained the records office don't hold Births, marriages and deaths which are civil records and sit with the Registrars, but they do hold Parish records such as Baptisms and burials.

Linking in with Picture the past the records of 400 plus parishes are stored, and deposits are encouraged from individuals, families and organisations for safe keeping, and accessibility for all.

The archivists preserve (to keep in current condition) or conserve (repair) documents. Repairs are carried using mainly Japanese papers which resemble old papers most;  preservation includes acid free storage boxes made to measure and the use of cushions to protect book spines etc.

Apparently as part of the conservation process - they do wash paper and iron it!

Other treasures of Derbyshire archives include Quarter sessions and Manor Courts - the predecessors of the local authorities; an Anne of Cleves signed deed, estate and family wills from 1858-1928 available on-line, Records from Smedleys hydro and Strutts mills etc.

A conundrum discovered by the records office in one of their deposits can be read about here: Bakewell pudding.

Karen then went onto explain about the written word, originally documents were produced in latin by scribes, monks in particualar, generally for ecclesiatical purposes. It could take months to write out one volume, a bible could take around three years to produce.

A book of hours was among the most common type of illuminated book, uniquely created by hand they were books of psalms and religious texts. starting life as psalters - from which Monks and nuns had to recite psalms - they were also a tool to learn to read.

Following the introduction of the printing press around the 1440s literacy levels began to improve, letters appeared, improved business communication, title deeds etc giving a better insight into lifestyle and community. See the 'rules for children' book to the right.....

Styles of handwriting developed Chancery Hand being the first official script arriving in England around 1350 from Rome via France - this example is Chancery - the nearest I could find on google....

Gothic in style the script was popular with Ducal and Royal families, used to enrol acts of parlaiament until 1836 - it inspired the first italic typeface.

Next came Secretary Hand 16th-17th century

in theory developed as the need for a more legible form of handwriting was needed?? This was the font used by WH Ireland to forge Shakespeare

The Counter-part document included in the photo album from Derbyshire archives, with its many seals was the inspiration for this years kickstart programme. There is a wax seal for each named individual parishioner involved in the contract - woman are incuded here...

Palaeography or Palæography, is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts. Karen gave us a brief summary, advising in order to identify a document you need to know what you are looking at - for example title deeds give a full description of what they are about. Spelling was only standardised in the 18th century, not deemd important prior to that; names and words can be spelt differently in the same document.

If in doubt say the word out loud and consider its context - so Belhaus written in a kitchen inventory becomes bellows when spoken...of course local accents and dialects should be considered too!

Parchment was very expensive so lots of abbreviations were used - m and n were oftem missed off and replaced by a squiggle...letter p was heavily abbreviated - the National Archives site has useful information on where to start.

Thanks to Karen for a very interesting and productive morning.


 

LIncolnshire Archive

Follows suit this coming Saturday 22nd September - The workshop is full - write up from Derbyshire to follow shortly...

Let the workshops begin....

This Saturday sees the first of the Archive workshops at Matlock with the Derbyshire County Council archivist.  Those of you booked on will have received your joining instructions and requirements list. There are still two places available for last minute entrants for Diana Syders workhop - just to remind you ...

Diana’s Biography:

“I am a painter and poet. As a painter I work in all media and move between abstract, semi-abstract and figurative styles. I regularly exhibit and in 2005 won the Derbyshire County Council Oil painting prize. My work can be seen at Bakewell Art and Design, and The Beetroot Tree, Draycott. At the time of writing I have a painting in The Harley Gallery open exhibition, Welbeck, and an exhibition scheduled for June 2013 at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. I tutor painting workshops and demonstrations. I’m also a poet for whom science and nature are major themes, with four published collections: String, Maxwell’s Rainbow (a Poetry Book Society Recommendation), Hubble, and Planet Box. I have a ‘Public Awareness of Science Award’ from the Institute of Physics for my poetry and, as a poet, am on the British Council’s list of science writers. I have taught and tutored creative writing extensively both in universities and with community groups. I live and work in Taddington in the Derbyshire Peak District where I design our Well Dressing. We use around 60 different materials, so in late August I can usually be found up to my knees in foliage and flowers, leading our petalling team.

Intention for the day:

‘Writing in pictures, drawing in words’

Artists often find inspiration in text, just as writers find inspiration in visual images. This workshop will give you a chance to experiment in both media. We’ll take ideas from the archivist’s talk and images from ancient documents to jump-start both your verbal and visual imaginations. A series of stimulating, interconnected exercises will take you beyond the obvious, leading towards a final piece that combines both text and visual images/textures. This is an opportunity to broaden your Archive project work, or to introduce new elements into your practice. Don’t worry if you think you can’t draw or can’t write; you will surprise yourself! You will go home with all sorts of interesting visual and written material and brimming with ideas for further work.

Requirements for the day:

Plastic sheeting to protect your workspace, , kitchen roll/cleaning rags, a hairdryer, charcoal, 4 large plastic pots (eg large yoghurt) , large drawing board (eg 76 x 76cms OR you can work on the table surface), white pastel, 2 household paint brushes (between ½ inch and 2 inches), graphite, w/sol graphite sticks, pencils, a chunky eraser (not a putty rubber). Any other implements you can’t bear to leave home without. A piece of any fabric....this could be a scarf, or anything you have in your workbox, size not critical but somewhere between a square foot and a square metre.

We will provide acrylic paint in black and white plus large sheets of cartridge paper.

I will be publishing pictures from the session sometime during the week following so watch this space...