TRANSLUCENT ICONOGRAPHY

I have more and more been using the translucent quality of calfskin vellum to artistic advantage. In my recent drawings of the Invention of the Holy Cross and of St. Ambrose with the Emperor Theodosius, I depicted background architecture, damask patterns, wood grain and coral fossils within stone on the reverse side; these show through the surface faintly, and more clearly when the vellum is held up to light. These are the first works in which I have used this method as extensively as I plan to use it in my future drawings for the Summula Pictoria.

Here I am attempting to invent a new artistic medium, which I have named in my mind the translucent icon; My desire to do this was born of a fascination with perspective and lighting in medieval art, which have an altogether different significance than in most postmedieval art.

In the composition of medieval holy pictures, the artists’ intention is to depict earthly events from a heavenly perspective; to depict things as though seen by the eyes of a prelapsarian Adam, or of a saint in glory (at least insofar as the artists are able, being themselves fallen men and women). This is why medieval holy pictures do not include a single vanshing point or light source within them; the infinite and eternal and the source of all light is behind the artist and the viewer.

This compositional intention is the same regardless of the natural light source for the work of art; the same arrangements are present in illuminated manuscirps and panel icons (which are only brilliant if a light source is in front of them to reflect off of the gold leaf) and in stained glass windows (which are only brilliant if a light source is behind them). A beautiful symbolism is suggested by both kinds of art; God’s light is both reflected by His creation and permeates it. But in these media, relection of light and permeation by it are mutually exclusive.

Here I am attempting to create works of art that have something of the nature of illuminated manuscripts and panel icons, and something of the nature of stained glass windows, and that are beautiful no matter which direction they are struck by natural light. Beheld at different places or at different times of day, the drawings can have an unlimited variety of appearance.

I beleive that it is especially important in the present day, when so much artwork (including my own) is commonly seen in the form of digital scans, to assure that original works of religious art are inextricable from reality. As the adage goes, to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail; to a man with a scanner, everything looks like a .jpg. It is tempting, as an artist in the present day, to disregard any artistic method that does not translate to a scanned image (which is absoultely flat, absolutely static, identical in every light, without any objective size). I am rather determined to do the opposite.

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SPONGES and DECALCOMANIA

When drawing on very smooth calfskin or goatskin, I am able to use two methods, sponge-stamping and decalcomania, that are more commonly used in painting than in drawing. This is because ink does not quickly saturate the skin and dry, as it would on paper. Rather, it sits on the surface and can be manipulated for a few seconds. Also, it is easy to remove cleanly with a knife, so it does not matter so much that these methods are rather messy.

I got the idea of using a natural sponge as a drawing tool from watching footage of Eyvind Earle painting a tree trunk. The natural patterns in the sponge approximate other natural patterns (such as the outlines of distant foliage or lichens growing on wood) very well.

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/hugh_lincoln.html

Decalcomania is a technique that involves spreading wet paint or ink on a surface, then pressing glass or paper or something else flat into it while it is still wet. When the pressure is removed, the paint or ink gathers into fascinating patterns. The painter Oscar Dominguez helped to make this method popular, and no artist used it more extensively than his fellow Surrealist Max Ernst (who was, in my student years, a major influence on me).

These are two oil paintings on canvas that I made when I was nineteen years old. I painted solid areas of light color, and then spread dark, thinned-out oil paint over them. I pressed plastic wrap against them for the decalcomania patterns. After I turned away from Surrealism and to medieval influences, I abandoned this method for years. Only recently have I begun to experiment with it again, as in the sky of my drawing of St. Hugh of Lincoln. No matter how repugnant I now find the ideas animating Surrealist art, I cannot deny that the decalcomania method can create very beautiful images. To refuse to use it in my religious art would be something of a cheat on God.

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CALFSKIN VELLUM and GOATSKIN PARCHMENT

Vellum and parchment are animal skins that have been soaked in limewater, scraped clean of flesh and fat, depilated, stretched, and polished or sanded smooth. Their method of preparation was invented during the reign of Eumenes II of Pergamon, in the second century before Christ. Within a few centuries, it had largely replaced papyrus in bookmaking, being more suitable for the newly-invented, and characteristically Christian, form of the book, the rectangular codex. Although paper was introduced into Europe by the 11th century, the vast majority of European books predating the advent of printing were written on vellum or parchment, including almost all of the most beautifully illuminated manuscripts.

The terms vellum and parchment are sometimes used interchangeably, but I tend to use the former word to refer to calfskin and the latter to refer to goatskin or sheepskin. I have drawn many works on calfkin, and a few on goatskin. I have never tried sheepskin; I read somewhere that sheepskin is oilier and that therefore it is more difficult to make corrections on it (which is why it was preferred for legal documents rather than artistic manuscripts). In medieval times, the thinnest sheets of calfskin were reserved for the best books (slunk or uterine vellum, made from the skins of miscarried calves, was especially prized). Personally, I prefer to work on thicker sheets of calfskin; these lay flatter and are easier to handle; since I am not binding the sheets into codices, their flexibility is not especially important. Goatskin is much thicker and more opaque than calfskin.

Medieval scribes and illuminators worked on both sides of a sheet of vellum or parchment. The flesh side of the sheet is somewhat whiter, and the hair side somewhat yellower; the difference is more pronounced in goatskin. Tanners sometimes create a fuzzy nap surface on a sheet, which is preferred by calligraphers. I prefer as smooth a surface as possible, and will draw on whichever side of the sheet is smoother.

I would rather draw on vellum or parchment than on any kind of paper. This is less because of its historic connections to medieval art than because it is a far superior surface for drawing. It is possible to draw a finer line on vellum and parchment than on paper. Any kind of paper is made of pulverized vegetable fibers; when a vegetable fiber touches liquid ink, it pulls the ink further along its length, like a capillary. Skin cells do not do this, so a line drawn in ink over them has less bleed. Because skin cells are naturally arranged in layers, it is possible to scrape them away very cleanly. Entire sheets of vellum and parchment were sometimes scraped clean and reused; these are called palimpsests and are especially interesting to historians becuase the erased text and images can be recovered with special photography. An artist drawing on vellum or parchment can make easy corrections with a knife, or scratch details into inked areas, with a precision that is simply impossible when drawing on paper.

The only real disadvantages to vellum and parchment are that they are more expensive than paper, and that large sheets of them are seldom perfectly flat or homogenous. Only a few of my drawings are so large that this problem compels me to use paper instead.

The first two photographs here show drawings in progress on calfskin; the third shows drawings in progress on goatskin.

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INK for DRAWING

I use Winsor & Newton calligraphers’ ink for most purposes. This ink is pigment-based, and more lightfast than dye-based ink. I also have some black Japanese sumi ink that I use occasionally.

Years ago, I would mix colors from different bottled inks in spoons for each drawing, using Pasteur pipettes to move drops of particluar colors into the mix. This was a terribly inefficient way to work; I needed to finish applying a particular color to the drawing before the ink dried, or store it somehow. If I ran out, I would need to remember how I mixed it the first time.

Later I realized that I tend to favor the same colors in all my drawings, so I switched to mixing a set of standard colors, and keeping on hand a bottle of each. This takes much less time. I also like having a signature palette to my work. I like my usual red to be a bit darker than what comes new in the bottle; I like my usual blue to be a bit closer to green than to purple. I have a fondness for a light cool green, the color of oxidized copper.

If I need something else, I usually mix a small amount of it and store it in a contact lens case. Occasionally I promote one of these to a standard color if I find myself using it often, or retire a standard color if it goes unused for a long time.

When I draw with a dip pen, the ink is much more thickly applied than when I draw with a paintbrush. The colors are therefore darker. I used to mix special dark colors (sanguine, indigo, sepia), but now consider these unnecessary; regular red, blue and brown applied with a dip pen have the same effect.

These are my twenty current standard ink colors. I will write more about the reasons I selected these particular ones, and about the symbolism of color - in liturgical, heraldic, optical and gemmological tradition - in later essays.

0. Ivory

1. Black (Sable)
2. Green (Vert)
3. Blue (Azure)
4. Purple (Purpure)
5. Red (Gules)
6. Brown
7. Yellow / Orpiment

1a. Warm Gray
1b. Gray
1c. Cool Gray

2a. Light Warm Green
2c. Light Cool Green / Verdigris

3b. Sky Blue

4b. Light Purple / Lavender

5a. Warm Pink / Carnation
5c. Cool Pink / Rose

6b. Light Brown

7a. Yellowy Brown
7c. Yellowy Green

Generally, I try to keep in mind the so-called Rule of Tincture in my own artwork: metal should not be put on metal, nor color on color. In heraldic tradition, the metals are Or (which is either Gold or Yellow) and Argent (which is either Silver of White); the usual colors are Sable, Vert, Gules, Azure and Purpure. In my own artwork, I consider ink colors 0, 7 (for Gold), 1c (for Silver) and 2c to be metals, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to be colors.

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PAPYRUS and WASHI

I bought a supply of papyrus about a year ago, mostly because my children were interested in Ancient Egypt. I’ve done a few small experiments on it, and found it a surprisingly good surface for drawing. Black ink sits well upon it and can be removed with gentle knife scraping; pencil marks lift off cleanly with a kneaded rubber eraser. The striations in the papyrus leaves cannot be hidden, but for some works this is not a problem, and can even be used to good artistic effect.

Papyrus was used for writing papal bulls as late as the eleventh century, and thus was circulated in medieval Europe.

Washi is paper made in the Japanese manner, from kozo, mitsumata or gampi fivers. It is very thin and translucent (like tissue paper), but because the long plant fibers are left mostly intact during the papermaking process, rather than pulverized, it is surprisingly sturdy and difficult to tear. It is really beautiful stuff.

It is, however, the most difficult and frustrating surface on which I have ever drawn; knives, metal-tipped pens and erasers are difficult to use on it, as they raise up hairy fibers from the surface that are nearly impossible to flatten. The only way that I have found to draw effectively on it is to prepare a separate drawing (usually on Bristol board) using my usual pencils, pens, knives and erasers; then lay the washi over it; and trace the image in ink using a tiny paintbrush.

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/mirigo.html

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PAPER for DRAWING

Bristol board is my usual choice for drawing on paper; there is nothing really special about it, but it works well. I usually buy Strathmore brand, with the so-called vellum surface. Which is really nothing like an actual calfskin vellum surface.

I use handmade cotton paper for many printing projects, and occasionally draw on it also. I buy mine from Twinrocker Handmade Papers in Brookston, IN, one of the last paper mills making real laid paper. Laid paper has a slight ribbed texture because of the way the wires are arranged in the papermaking mould; there are many thin wires running in one direction, and more widely spaced wires perpendicular to these. You can see the evidence of these when you hold the paper up to a light. (This piece also has the Twinrocker watermark.) Laid paper was the only kind of paper available in Europe before wove paper was invented in the 18th century. I rather like the way it feels and prefer it for my own medieval-styled artwork.

Certain other paper mills sell fake laid paper that has the texture impressed into it by a mechanical roll at a late stage of the manufacturing process. This rather offends me.

As a drawing surface, handmade paper is not a precise as Bristol board, calfskin or goatskin, but it has an appeal of its own.

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/cajetan.html

Graph paper is useful on occasion. Drafting vellum is a translucent plasticky film that I use for tracing and transferring images. I don’t like that this, too, is labeled vellum, because to me vellum means calfskin, not Bristol board and certainly not plastic film.

Draftng vellum is nearly impossible to tear by hand, and this is the other reason I keep it nearby - whole sheets of this are great to give to babies who like to play with paper!

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PENS, KNIVES and OTHER TOOLS

I have read several diferent illustrators remark that the question they are most often asked is what pen they use - implicitly complaining that people think the creation of good art is mostly a matter of choosing the right pen.

I myself am most often asked whether I use a magnifying glass when I draw. (I do not.) But I suspect that someone or other wants to know what pen (and what other tools) I use. So here begins a short series of posts on my preferred tools and materials.

First, I confess that I don’t find my tools and materials especially interesting. Some artists really love theirs; some even consider the give-and-take between an artist, his materials and his tools to be the very essence of the creative process. Personally, I just want them to be obedient; I have an image in mind and I want to use whatever will put it down most precisely.

My basic method is to draw outlines in pencil, draw over the pencil outlines in black ink with pens, erase the pencil marks, add dark colors in ink with pens, add medium and light colors in ink with paintbrushes. I use a knife to make corrections and to etch details into inked areas.

PENS: Usually, I draw with metal-tipped pens that I dip into pigment-based calligraphers’ inks. When I first decided to make these sort of pens my primary drawing tool, I didn’t know which holders or nibs I would like best, so I bought a variety. That inital purchase has lasted until the present, and every one I have tried has worked pretty well. On my desk now I have a Nikko G nib in a black plastic holder, a Hunt 22 nib in a double-ended wooden holder, and a Hunt Crowquill nib in a smaller plastic holder. The last is the one I like best, and when it comes time to replenish my tools, I will probably just buy these.

I used to draw almost everything using technical pens, the thinnest available (usually labeled size 005 or XS). I’ve tried various brands, and have no real complaints about any of them. Faber Castell is what I use now. I have a stash of technical pens in various colors, but only use the black ones with any frequency.

I prefer dip pens to technical pens for several reasons. First, technical pens are made for drawing on paper, not calfskin or goatskin. If used for drawing on skin that has a nap (fuzzy) surface, the felt tips dry out and the pens are ruined very quickly. When I was using technical pens more often, I would sometimes go through a dozen before finishing a single drawing. This gets expensive. Although I did find that when technical pens start to dry out, they can produce an even finer line, so I would keep a few half-ruined ones on hand for detail work.

When drawing on smooth calfskin or goatskin, there is a different problem. The ink from technical pens does not adhhere to the skin as securely as bottled calligrapher’s ink. When I would use an eraser to remove pencil likes, it would take away ink with it.

Compared to pigmented bottled ink, the black ink from a technical pen looks dark gray; when I would use both in combination (technical pens for outlines and bottled ink to fill in the colors), the colors would sometimes look darker than the black outlines - an undesired effect, of course.

I continue to use technical pens for making black and white drawings on paper; for making small corrections or additions to letterpress prints; and for fixing the edges around gold and palladium leaf. On occasion, when drawing on calfskin, I need to draw on a troublesome spot where the surface is unusually rough or thin. In this place, the wet ink off of a dip pen is unpredictable, and I switch to the slow-flowing technical pen.

KNIVES: In medieval illustrations, monastic scribes are often depicted holding pens in their right hands and knives in their left. While I hold both my pen and my knife in my right hand, I do use one about as much as the other. The knife is for erasing mistakes in ink and cleaning up edges - but it is also a useful drawing tool for etching fine lines into ink. When drawing on smooth calfskin or goatskin, it is very easy to remove ink cleanly with a knife, because skin cells naturally lie in thin layers.

My usual knife is a Xacto with a #10 blade, which is shaped like a small scalpel. I use the curved blade to scrape and the point to etch. (An iron etching stylus might be an even better tool for this, but I do not own one.)

PENCILS: Ordinary #2 pencils are my usual tool for preliminary drawing.

ERASERS: I prefer kneaded rubber, which picks up pencil marks cleanly off of calfskin, but is gentle enough not to remove much ink. I have also some hard white erasers for use on paper.

PAINTBRUSHES: I have a variety, but the ones that I use most often are 20/0 Princeton Monogram. This is about as precise a paintbrush a is available; it can produce as thin a line as a pen. I even use this to draw entire pictures on Japanese washi paper (where metal-tipped pens don’t work).

BURNISHER: This tool’s main purpose is to burnish gold leaf. I have found it a useful tool also for drawing, even when I am not using gold leaf. It has a smooth agate tip shaped like a dog’s tooth that is used to apply pressure; this can flatten surfaces of paper that has been scraped with a knife, and even manipulate ink that has soaked into paper.

MOBILE ART KIT: During times when I am especially busy, I make it a habit to carry a project with me. Aside from the burnisher, my basic supplies fit neatly into an eyeglasses case. With contact lens cases to hold different colors of ink, a cloth diaper to wipe ink off of the pens, and a thin, hardcover book to carry the drawing and scratch paper, I can set up a drawing desk almost anywhere.

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HISTORICAL FICTION

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sacred_heart_washi.html

There is some measure of irony in any historical revival or traditionalist endeavor; it requires doing something self-consciously that was not done self-consciously in the past. But I certainly would rather do something good with a measure of irony than do nothing good at all!

Traditional artists might be placed into categories by how they handle this problem of self-consciousness, and by how strictly they imitate the art of the past. At one extreme are forgers: those who actually purport to make the art of the past. The so-called Spanish Forger is a well-known recent example of a skillful but deceptive artist working in a medieval tradition.

Some distance from them stands the reenactors, who admit the originality of thier work, but otherwise follow old practices as exactly as possible. This describes many of the artists and craftspeople participating in groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism (whose work I truly respect and admire).

Next are artists who are analogous to writers of historical fiction in archaic language; they create art that plausibly might have been created in the past, but differs from anything that actually was. After them are artists comparable to writers of alternate history, who construct language to match; I am reminded here of William Morris, whose English is not exactly an imitation of Caxtonian English. Rather, it is an imitation of what Caxtonian English would be like if the Norman Invasion had never happened, an English with its French vocabulary removed. An artist of this kind creates art that might have been created in the past had the past gone differently.

I once thought of myself as the last sort of artist. The basic concept of my artwork was that it was what a Catholic artist of the twenty-first century would have made had the Middle Ages never ceased. It pretended no ignorance of those real facts of which medieval artists were ignorant (the existence, for example, of microorganisms, Japanese culture, kangaroos or the rings of Saturn), but it ignored all of the drastic changes in religion and philosophy that occurred as the medieval world gave way to the modern. It was an art reflecting an instinctive belief in the prefigurement of the Gospel in history, the vision of God in nature, the sacred significance of words and numbers, the reality of miracles and the truth of Divine Revelation.

What I have come to realize is that this art need not be a work of fiction at all. For the more I learn of the medieval worldview, the more I believe it to be correct. No suspension of disbelief or willful ignorance is needed to believe that every animal, vegetable and mineral in God’s creation; every length, height and depth; every thought, word and act of the past, present and future is charged with a mystic significance. I intend my art to demonstrate that these things can (still and always) be seen from a medieval perspective, which is to say, a Christian and sacramental perspective. The world that we see once the scales of modern misconception fall from our eyes is reality itself; the very world that God made, and in which the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

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These different approaches to traditional art require artists to make different decisions about their materials and processes. I am often asked whether I use historically accurate materials and tools to make my drawings. For the most part, I do not. My standard for choosing materials and tools is to use whatever can realize the pictures that I have in mind in the most precise, beautiful and permanent way. This, I believe, is in the true spirit of medieval art. Sometimes, this means using an old process; calfskin vellum is, I believe, the very finest material for drawing, and had real advantages over any modern material which might be substituted for it. But I would not make a drawing in oak gall ink (one of the most common medieval inks) because it is now known to be acidic; rather, I would choose an archival ink that looks similar. Likewise, I would not use silver leaf for illuminated details, as many medieval artists did; silver tarnishes to an ugly black after exposure to air. Medieval artists did not know that platinum-group metals, which do not tarnish at all, existed. Now, palladium leaf is readily available (and not especially expensive), so I use that instead.

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