Babbling Along...

 

The Tower of Babel....

My Options, Dear Readers, for a model to use for my painting of The Tower of Babel, were numerous and varied. It was another of the very standardized and popular images in Medieval iconography used to show the folly of human ambition and pride, and the consequences of disobeying the guidance from above. The Medieval versions all include renderings of the actual methods of construction in use at the time of the portrayal, and thus are a wealth of information to scholars looking for the history of developing technologies. Above, you can see the hoists used to get materials to the top of the construction, as well as workers carving the stone windows.

 

And here is another very similar version, 

just to show you how similar some of the portrayals were.

 These were both from the fourteenth century,

 probably German sources.

 (This particular reference I have, "Medieval Crafts A Book of Days" 

was printed in 1993 and is not detailed about the origin of the artworks.)

 

Here is another, fairly early one tucked into the Illuminated Initial 

(I have shown you this one before as reference to

 the Creation and Adam and Eve paintings)... 

as you can see the shape is less vertical and the style is more primitive, 

but the workers are carving the stone and lugging it up the Tower.

 

Here is the version in The Illuminated Naples Bible 

that I have shown you before.... once again, 

it is fairly early in style and the tower is not vertical

 but the workers are hard at work!

 

Here is another version that is fairly early in style

 but has a wealth of "technology" to use in aid of construction! 

Again, the references on this illumination are not available.

 This is the earliest reference I've seen of a 

human treadmill to hoist the materials.

 

This is a much more sophisticated, 

later version from the mid fifteenth century. 

It is later than I would use, but it shows

 the persistence of the basic iconography. 

This is from the Bedford Hours.

 

And then there is this one, which combines 

many of the pieces I wanted to include.... 

the workers and the technology as well as the 

"timeless" feeling of the Tower itself... 

not very tall yet... but going up! 

It is from the early to mid fourteenth century

 in style of artwork, again I have no details

 for the manuscript it originates in. 

I also needed to restrict it and alter the

 arrangement to fit my smaller panel... 

but I know how to do that! 

There was no question of being able to just trace this image... 

I was going to have to draw my own version 

from scratch to fit it all into the panel. 

Initially that felt daunting.... but I just got going

 and in the end came up with a pretty good facsimile.

 

I traced the panels shape onto ordinary paper 

so I would be working in the right dimensions. 

Then I just drew the image as plainly as I could 

(none of the frills... just the outlines)... 

because I was going to need to transfer this

 to the panel using the graphite pencil method.

 

 Which results in this.... yeah... 

it is pretty difficult to make out the specifics! 

Now it was time to ink the outlines using my .005 micron pen. 

This was slow careful work in bright light. 

Because I had drawn the original version, 

I could identify the pencil marks....

 

And I ended up with the outline drawing all laid out... 

but had to wait twenty-four hours for the ink to dry properly

 (the humid air is relentless... 70% as I write and this is a "dryish" day) 

before I could begin the actual painting.

 

Starting with the flesh tones and then the red... 

the most obvious, most defining small bits of color... 

it immediately brings the painting alive!

 

Then the blue and most of the gray... 

trying to get its rough shades in the right places..... 

here I am copying what the Medieval original has... 

not what I would know to be more "correct" perspective.

 I have to work at not modernizing the picture!

 

And adding the green ground, 

and the few green clothes.....

 

And the ocher wood hues. 

These are all just the base coats..... 

fairly roughly applied.

 

And then the background color! 

I argued with myself for a while about the background color... 

(isn't this a familiar tale by now...?) 

The original appears to be a dark salmon orange. 

But this is a bit deceptive. 

The original has a subtle overall pattern

 covering the background color. 

This is a very common fourteenth century painting style. 

The "ground" is redder than it appears,

 but is overlaid with a yellow grid of diamonds and quatrefoils, 

with a grayish cross shape in the middle of each diamond shape.

 Complicated!

 Not what would work on a large scale mural painting... 

although I am still toying with adding a pattern.... 

But the resulting appearance of that background

 is a salmon-ish orange. 

The only thing I was sure of is that my background 

was now too dark. So I repainted it a paler salmon color.

 

Here you can see the lighter background, 

and the beginnings of stonework details and shading.....

At this point I forgot to take pictures and just did the thing 

of adding detail to whatever caught my attention..... 

believe me... there is a ton of detail in this small painting.....!

 

Starting to define the tread-wheel apparatus....

 

And the lumber of the construction platform.... 

but I confess, I was having a hard time 

making myself work on all those little people..... 

Fourteen little people plus the Lord above...!

 

But it had occurred to me that the guy way up on the top.... 

reaching for the crane rope... reminded me a bit

 of my older brother who has worked much of his life in the building trades... 

and has been known to do some complex "rigging" from time to time...  

and suddenly I couldn't think of him as anyone 

but my brother Patrick...! 

So, Okay, I painted him to look a little bit like my brother! 

 

Which meant I was going to have to paint one of 

the others to look like my younger brother 

who has also spent much of his life in the building trades....

 (far away from his older brother, of course...) 

and maybe because I was needing some help

 to get inspired I suddenly noticed I had a visitor.....

 

"Hey..!" said Wanda.... waving in my direction... 

"I'm 'Wanda'..." and I just wanta see what you're doing... " 

she added as she jumped into my painting....

 

 "I think these guys look like my brothers...." she added, 

laughing, as she jumped down to the scaffolding. 

I looked up again, having just painted my younger brother Jonathan 

as the mason carving the rock at the bottom right.... 

(Jonathan has always had a thing for rocks......)

"You better watch out for the wet paint..." I said, chidingly.... 

not sure where she was going with this....

 

"Oh, look...!" she cried suddenly.... 

"Here's my brother Glint and his buddy Toby...!" 

"Hey, Toby...!" she yelled....."Don't get caught in the wheelie thing..."

 "It's not a 'wheelie-thing' Toby said scathingly... 

it's a 'Tread-wheel' and if you don't watch out 

we'll tie you to it...." he threatened, clearly exasperated.

 Meanwhile, Glint, if that was his name, 

was clearly fascinated by the mortar mudhole... 

and was about to make a mucky mess.... 

"Okay, that's enough..." I said sternly...

"You guys are not really helping here 

and I need to get on with the painting.... 

you need to find somewhere else to play...." 

and just like that they disappeared......!

 

Suddenly it was almost a breeze to get the rest of the faces painted. 

In the peace and quiet I could concentrate on one tiny

 (and I do mean tiny!) little face at a time. 

They do look sort of like her brothers... 

just wait 'til they get their shoes... you'll see! 

 

Of course, I got a little hasty and botched the last little face..... 

had to start him over again... 

 

First the white paint then the flesh paint 

then shadows then details...... 

but I think I got him now!

 It's one of the things I really like about the original painting... 

those workers all really have different characters! 

But yes, I still have a lot of details to go.

 

And if I have been babbling more than usual, Dear Readers, 

you can blame it on The Tower of Babel itself.... 

the origin of much confounding confusion

 throughout this  world!

 

 

The Annunciation Continued....

 

Beyond The Glow... The Shadows..... 

I Suppose, Dear Readers, it would be Reasonable to assume that in a week I could, and would, finish the Annunciation painting in The Chapel. You can see above the status of the portrait at the end of last week's blog, all the brilliant colors mapped out and the glowing golden background emphasizing the nature of this moment. But alas, as with real life, the story is not complete without the shadows, and as with real life, the shadows are not as easy to define, even though there is a "road map" to follow. I made changes to the Archangel Gabriel's presence in this picture... and even that has shadowy repercussions. In the original illumination, Mary is the Embodiment of Serenity and Grace. She is at Peace, while Gabriel with his wings and fluttering garments is all energy and motion... a force that cannot be ignored no matter that he comes to a standstill in Mary's presence. 

 

And yet, I have removed three quarters of Gabriel's form

 in my version of the painting. 

I have changed his relationship to Mary entirely

 to fit him into the narrower window of space.

 Both his arms are positioned slightly differently, 

his wings are almost not visible, 

and while I have tried to keep the agitated lines

 of his garments to express his urgent nature,

 even that is severely constrained by the space, 

but also by my humble abilities with rendering the shadowed folds.

 Even his banderole with its eternal message

 has lost its vigorous assertiveness 

and wavers across the space. 

So many alterations, but I would not change a one of them. 

It is what it is, and there is nothing I can do but wing it.

 

I began with their faces, 

and as often happens while I am actively painting, 

I forget to take any progress pictures. 

Suffice it to say they fairly quickly showed their true colors.

 I honestly do not know how this happens... 

it is such tiny dabs of paint, layer upon layer,

 adjustment after adjustment, building the shadows,

 defining the expressions...

 me seeking the thing I see on the page and finding something else, 

all it's own, but unmistakably real. 

And at a certain point I have to stop and leave it as it is.

 Gabriel has arrived with his alarming Announcement...

(I will not go down the path of my feminist rant here...) 

and Mary Sees Gabriel and accepts this Announcement with all her Grace.

 And I see this and think, Wow, that was fast.

  And yet, I still must render all those folds and shadows,

 for they, too deliver the message.

 

As with their hands.... 

the motions are so standardized and specific.... 

my ability to copy them, less so... 

but perhaps still good enough.... 

once the shadows have made them realistic.

 

And then trying to capture the motion of Gabriel's garments.... 

which cannot just follow the original path... 

there is no room for that, so all I can manage

 is a suggestion of folds and sweeping energy... 

(the ancients wore draped garments and understood viscerally

 their weight and folds... we have no language for this

 in our lives of skin tight stretchy stuff 

and no concealment whatsoever!) 

But I digress... and I am settling for rendering bulk

 where I cannot fathom the energetic movement of wafting cloth.... 

layer by layer... color by color, shifting the folds

 adding the shadows which hide so much.

 

And tiptoeing into Mary's attire.... 

so composed and calm by comparison.... 

except for the agitated drapes of her undergown 

folding in ruffled clouds at her feet. So eloquent the feet....!

 

And still wrestling with Gabriel's gown and stole.... 

a little darker here a little lighter there... 

and venturing to add the draped folds of Mary's cloak... 

such a calm counterpoint!

 

And adding some clarity to Gabriel's halo....

 and details to his wings.... 

the merest suggestion of winged power....

 And all the while still wrestling with Mary's calm acceptance....

 her absolute Peace with the unfolding of the unknown.....

 

So you can see, Dear Readers, one would think 

it would be a breeze to complete just these two well defined figures....

 but somehow the Shadows.... 

always wrestling with the shadows.... 

tells a different tale. 

Beyond the brilliant Golden Glow are the shadows, 

and they both complete and complicate the picture.

 And so, I am still painting in the shadows....

 

No.....

 

It's Not Yet Done....

You Might recall, Dear Readers, my caveat at the end of last week's post, reminding you that there was still the exterior opening wall panel needing it's decoration before I could declare the Chapel "complete". It might be a small caveat, but it is not a small task! And knowing myself, I am determined to not jump away from this project before I have those paintings at least ninety percent finished! No rough sketches with design challenges still to decide, no half finished painting while I dither about a color..... I really want to "finish" the Chapel this year! I have known for a long time what the topics are for each of these panels, and I have a very clear "sense" of how I want them to look... but that leaves a Lot of vagueness about the specific details. The two remaining panels will have the Tower of Babel and The Annunciation as the subjects. I have spent a lot of time this year poring through all my texts to tease out the versions I want to use for my principal models. You might have forgotten that I am copying from actual originals for all these panels, with the knowledge that I am also making them "my own version" by altering them sometimes only a tiny bit, sometimes quite a lot for my versions. The above picture is an example of a Tiny version of "The Annunciation" tucked into the illuminated border.... you can see it there right above my thumbnail... along with the Visitation, Nativity, The Visit of the Magi, and The Presentation in the Temple. These are tiny paintings from The Gorleston Psalter, an English manuscript dating to around 1304 which is about as late as I would like my sources to be. I find it significant because the Virgin Mary is standing up when she receives the word from Gabriel. It is much more common to see her pictured as kneeling in prayer...

 

As in this illumination from the Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours

 and dating to "before 1400".

 I admit, I was intrigued at the idea that the older portrayals

 of this scene showed Mary standing, not kneeling humbly at her prayers.

 I found a couple more versions that seemed to confirm my suspicion...

 

Such as this one from "The Apocalypse Norman"

 dating to around 1320....

 (I used another scene from this as my model for

 the Visitation stained glass panel, you might recall).

 

This one, taken from a Psalter from Wurzburg 

and dating to around 1240,

  is much closer to the dates I am trying to use,

 and embodies "the strength of Character" I am looking for.

 This then, would be my principal model for the Chapel painting.

 I say principal model, because I will have to modify it

 to fit the narrower sized panel I am painting. 

I am borrowing several elements from the Norman Apocalypse

 version and am squeezing them into the narrower space

 by making Gabriel "entering" the panel but not entirely visible.

 

I used the tracing I had made to establish the overlap panels shape,

 and placed it over the book rendering, and was surprised 

that the figure is the perfect size for this panel!

 I traced it onto the tracing paper and worked the remaining details in by hand. 

When it all fit the panel properly, I covered the back side with graphite

 (my pencil) and used it to transfer the image directly to the painting panel.

 

If you look carefully, you can see the fine pencil marks on the panel... 

I am just beginning the inking process.

 

Here the inking is complete on the main panel.... 

I have to do it separately from the overlap panel

 because there will be overlap... 

ie. part of the painting on both doors.

 

 Here you can see both the doors, the main panel inked

 and the overlap panel still not inked.

 

 I needed to let the ink dry for twenty-four hours

 before trying to paint... the humid air is not conducive

 to drying things out at this time of year. 

 

And then I started to add the pigments. 

This is just the base coats, nothing subtle or delicate, 

just blocking in the colors.

 I want to stay as true to the original as I can with the colors... 

they are a big part of what I love about this version.... 

later work all insist in dressing Mary in blue.... 

here her gown is maroon and her cloak bright red! 

I have borrowed the chair and the reading stand

 from the later version... in nearly every

 version Mary is reading or at prayer... 

clearly a message that she is educated. 

The chair fits on the overlap panel, 

along with a sliver of Mary's cloak... 

just a perfect fit for this divided painting!

 

 I also love that her halo is blue.... 

again, from before the standardization of only gold for haloes.

 

In this squeezed version, Gabriel's role is down-played, 

while Mary is central to the whole event.

 

Here you can see the overlap panel has also been painted. 

I have to be careful to keep them separated while the paint dries. 

Then I need to make sure the overlap of the designs is aligned correctly.

 

Another reason I am so fond of this version is

 the golden ocher color of it's background, 

and I now know just how to achieve that radiant golden glow effect! 

I could not imagine a more fitting panel for this golden background

 than the Annunciation... the return to Eden, 

or as close as anyone can come!

 

Here you can see I have added the golden yellow under-paint layer.

 In general, the older the manuscript, 

the less sophisticated the paint medium methods were.

 This manuscript was done in tempra

 (usually an egg-yolk based paint hand mixed by the artist.) 

I get to use tubes of acrylic ready to paint.

 But still, they are the genuine basic pigments... 

cadmium red, chromium green, cadmium yellow,

 titanium white,  and ultramarine blue..... 

which is a modern invention and replaces the antique lapis-lazuli blue.

 (Just in case you wanted to know!) 

Oh, and black....used to be made from lamp soot.

And then the layers of the lighter brighter thalo gold 

(also a modern invention.)

I am not using gold leaf!

 

 

And more gold layers... sorry about the darkish photo... 

it is getting late, and golly gosh the sun is actually setting

 earlier and earlier now! (How did that happen!?) 

 

 

Here you can see both panels.... 

not yet done.... not by a long shot!

 

And while we are being reminded of the not-yet-done things.... 

I scrutinized all my photos from last week's post 

and found more than a few more little tweaks....

I made a list so I would be sure not to miss any of them....

 

Chiefly, there were many places where the ceiling trim 

covered a tiny bit of the painting it sat next to.... 

so I had to paint those little bits to go "around the corner"

 onto the finished trim piece.... not quite as easy as it sounds! 

Above, you can see God's fingertips reaching onto one panel.... 

and the edges of the clouds of one of the creation scenes on another.... 

and a few places where the "rays" from God's creative thought

 needed to cross the ceiling trim panel at exactly the correct spot...... 

and heading in the correct direction... 

(an amazingly interpretive exercise depending on your angle of viewing...!).

 And then there were a few places where the arched framework

 needed to be evened up and made to match better 

with the piece around the corner.... and so on! 

 

 

And this might sound silly.... 

but the back edge on all the ceiling trim pieces needed to be

 shaved to an angle to match the slant of the ceiling.... 

(Duh!) who would forget to do that? 

(See the above example for clarity!)

 

It makes them fit better... 

the paintings line up better with each other

 and the cracks more nearly disappear...!

 

And here you can see the panels with the sunlight 

coming through the stained glass windows... 

so you can see how the painted panel relates

 to the glass panels on either side. 

The child Mary is looking toward the grown up Mary

 and the Saint Elizabeth window is looking toward Mary

 who is just learning of her impending joy. 

This view will only be visible from 

inside the Chapel when all is said and done.
 

 

So, No, Dear Readers, 

I was not really and truly Done... 

Just in case you really truly wondered.... 

We still have a ways to go!