The first attempt at illumination – At the time, I knew nothing about gold leaf or illumination but I knew I loved the look and wanted to try it. This piece is the song from the Kevin Costner movie “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves” which my husband and I both loved. I bought the song lyrics and literally copied the notes and drew the characters around the edges. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much about gold at the time and I used gold paint which shows up dark now. But I love the colors of the blue and red which are the rich colors of the earlier times. Whether the script matches the time portrayed in the movie, I don’t know and wasn’t really trying to be historically accurate in that regard anyway. I just wanted to represent the movie and song and I think I achieved that. It’s one of my favorite pieces. I used the ‘fake’ parchment paper which is not that good for artwork but it was appropriate for the piece.

This is a proclamation I did for my husband in appreciation for all his hard work in getting his Associates degree while at the same time working 60 hour weeks, helping take care of my father who was ill at the time, helping out his club that he belonged to AND being a fulltime husband and dad to our two kids. I felt he deserved something a little bit more than a pat on the back and a piece of paper so I tried to put some real sense of importance to the occasion to let him know what his efforts meant and that his hard work was appreciated.  I used examples of certificates from the early 1900’s for the styling of the piece and purple is his favorite color so that was an easy choice. I could have made the vines thicker and more ornate but I wanted to keep all the focus on “Johnnie” and the words themselves. It hangs on our wall and he does not let me take it anywhere to show because he doesn’t want anything happening to it so I have to show pictures instead!

I used gouache on both of these pieces which is what I use on the majority of my calligraphy since it is more forgiving and easier to get rid of mistakes!