More Treasures!

The Collection Grows.....

Yes, Dear Readers, if you have not already guessed, I am the lucky recipient of Tony's most recent creation, an Amazing Little casket of wood and carved antique ivory and an even more amazing Medieval Book that fits inside! Father Alban is the caretaker of this Gorgeous Treasure, and he is even more speechless than I am when faced with the Beauty and Perfection of this creation!

Here, let me show you a closer view.....

And here you can see inside.....

He even added an Elizabethan coin as part of the Treasure!

And all the pages of the Manuscript are printed and readable....

 if you know how to read Late Antiquity script!

It is illuminated in the Style of a Manuscript from the era of Charlemagne....

So even for my Castle folk, this is a venerable Text several hundreds of years old!

And the chest has a false bottom with a hidden compartment!

I will have to discover what Treasures belong in there!

The Lord of the Castle has left this Treasure with Father Alban 

because he hopes Father Alban can make a copy of this manuscript....!

(Or at least a copy of the text and an approximation of the illuminations.)

It would be a Monumental undertaking to copy the entire Book....

There are numerous intricate illuminations....

And Father Alban is afraid his eyesight is not as good as it used to be.

But he is prepared to begin making the parchments necessary for the pages...

Perhaps it is time he took on an assistant to train in the arts....

A Youngster who can help him to scrape the skins 

and grind the pigments and mix the inks.

The work would go faster that way....

and the sooner begun, the sooner done!

Ah, a Treasure this Beautiful must be carefully tended!

(Thank you Tony, it is Magnificent!)

As for Myself, Dear Readers, I have been 

wrestling with an entirely different kind of Painting!

To begin with, I added a whole lot more Egg Carton Rocks to the Guard Tower...

I really want to get the interior work finished on the upper part of the Tower!

And I constructed the ceiling beams for the top ceiling....

And then I added a whole lot of pink builder's foam 

to the outside of the Tower to make the "buttresses" 

which support that wonderful rooftop garden!

It took quite a bit of "engineering" to get the chunks of foam 

to fit on the corners correctly and taper the right way!

Eventually they will be covered with Egg Carton Rocks too!

And once I had added all the interior "rocks" it was time to start the painting....

And how many (?) coats of paint later.....

(I apologize for the horrid picture!)

The paint is just Not cooperating!

First the Primer, then the first layer of gray paint... 

then a darker layer to fill in all the "cracks" between the "rocks"

(This takes Forever!)

And then some pure black to fill all the tiny "holes" between the "rocks"

where the paint won't reach, but the eye can see the unpainted spot!

And then another layer of the lighter gray to highlight the rock textures....

Which made too much of the "rock" outlines disappear!

As you can see... it is not cooperating!

So it looks to me as though I will be painting

 Rocks and more Rocks for quite some time!

Maybe I will go join Father Alban, Dear Readers,

And Dream of painting magnificent Tiny Miniatures....

More Tiny Treasures.....

for my Growing Collection!