PRELIMINARY DESIGN WORK for the SUMMULA PICTORIA

In 2017, I announced the Summula Pictoria, a project that I expect to be my magnum opus, and to which I will devote a large part of the next 13 years: more than 200 ink drawings on calfskin, covering major events in the Old and New Testaments, from the Creation to the deaths of the Apostles. I am ready to start drawing the first of the pictures before the end of this year, far ahead of schedule.

I have spent a lot of the past year on preliminary design work that will allow me to keep the style of the drawings consistent over 13 years. This includes letterforms for inscriptions and banderoles; damask patterns for clothing and wall hangings; tile arrangements, tracery and key patterns for floors and walls and moldings. I will use these in ways that symbolize the sacred events or establish their setting. All of this is tedious and time-consuming, and produces little that is immediately salable, but I consider it very important and am glad to have so much of it finished.

I will begin writing about this design work in greater detail soon.

The first pictures on the schedule are the Scouring of the Temple, the Repentance of Nineveh, Nathan’s Parable, the Hospitality of Abraham, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, the Martyrdom of Thomas the Apostle, the Crossing of the Red Sea and St. Michael the Archangel. The full list of pictures included in the scope of the Summula Pictoria can be read here; I still need patrons for most of these.