This photo-filled guide offers you all the information you need to begin the fascinating ancient art of illumination, and then to improve your skills. A short history of the art, including photos of some of the world's great medieval masterpieces, gives you context, and then you're introduced to the materials and basic techniques. First learn the proper ways of preparing your parchment, selecting pigments, gilding, and using color. Next, the five steps of illuminating are clearly taught in detail. By learning to create friezes, detailed human faces, flourishes, creatures such as dragons and elephants, and much more, you'll discover a skill that has crossed the centuries. Today, illumination can be used to add a special flair to diplomas, invitations, family trees, or a memorable event like a wedding, a birthday, or an anniversary.
Something strange is going on. All over the world, pain is manifesting itself as light. Cuts and bruises blaze and flash. Arthritic joints glow. Injured troops emit radiant white shards into the desert night. On the news, they're calling it 'The Illumination'. As this breathtaking phenomenon takes holds, a private journal of love notes passes into the keeping of Carol Ann Page, a lonely hospital patient, and from there through the hands of five other people. Each of them will find their lives changed forever over a story which spans decades and continents, a story that shines a spectacular light on the wounds we all bear...
In the year 2536, The Unified Consortium Alliance is in a devastating war against a mysterious enemy known as the Prax Order. And they are in desperate need of help. Seeking out assistance in unclaimed space, they come in contact with the E-S'hanti Tribes. The older members of the Alliance knew who the E-S'hanti are and encouraged the other members to consider their offer of help, even though the E-S’hanti are as mysterious as their enemy. All the E-S'hanti wanted from the Alliance was for them to come to their territory on a space vessel designed by the E-S'hanti to go by the name of Oracle and two specific people were to be onboard: Captain Steven Garrison and Commander Cameron Quinn. Steven, Cameron and the crew of the Oracle will venture out into the unclaimed space to meet with the E-S'hanti while traversing through new personal relationships, the danger of their enemy chasing them, an enemy agent onboard to cause trouble and the legend that connects the two people specifically chosen for this ship. This is the story of their first mission.
Spirited history and comprehensive instruction manual covers 13 styles (ca. 4th–15th centuries). Excellent photographs; directions for duplicating medieval techniques with modern tools. "Vastly rewarding and illuminating." — American Artist.
"Illuminated manuscripts are perhaps the most beautiful treasures to survive from the middle ages. This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive introduction to the medieval world of books, their production and their consumption. The text divides this world into different groups of readers and writers: missionaries, emperors, monks, students, aristocrats, priests, collectors and the general public. De Hamel is both informative and immensely readable, and the sumptuous illustrations render this book too good to be missed."--From Amazon.com
Recapture the historic grandeur of medieval art with lovingly detailed reproductions ranging from the creation of Eve to the Hundred Years' War. Thirty images include Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and secular sources.
The fantasy field has been waiting for this for years: Terry McGarrys first novel. Formerly the Vice President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, a longtime copyeditor for all the major publishers, and the author of a number of well-received short stories, McGarry is extremely well known throughout the genre. And now, with talent, insight, and skill rarely seen today, McGarry has crafted a fantasy adventure of the first rank; a wonderful, gripping adventure. Liath was proud to have passed her challenge and become a true mage, ready to journey the land and find a Triad to bond with as an Illuminator. But that very night, her light fails her: she can no longer see the magical illumination guiders, and thus, despite the mages badge upon her breast, can no longer call herself Illuminator. Liath travels to the city and petitions the Ennead, the senior mages of the land, for help and a cure. Before they will help her, they set a task for her to fulfill: she must find and capture the rogue Dark Mage, and bring him to the Ennead for justice; only then will her light be freed. So goes Liath on the most important journey of her life, for the future of the world rests on her success or failure--but which one? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
A “wondrous” novel of fear, desire, loss, and discovery on Martha’s Vineyard by the New York Times–bestselling author of Practical Magic and Seventh Heaven (Chicago Tribune). Elizabeth Renny has only made two decisions of consequence in her seventy-plus years. While the first, marrying her husband, had adequate results, the second—deciding she could fly from her bedroom window—is less successful. But her flight sets in motion a series of events that will forever change the lives of six residents of Martha’s Vineyard: a young boy who refuses to grow, a wife stifled by her irrational anxiety, a husband tempted by the unknown, a girl flirting with disaster, a gentle giant tortured by his size, and an old woman with nothing to lose. Praised as “an intelligent novel” by the New York Times and “achingly vivid” by Newsday, Illumination Night is a sparkling and heartbreaking narrative that explores marriage, friendship, youth, yearning, disillusionment, and desire, a book as bright and memorable as the festival of lanterns for which it is named.
Rare letters and borders that once enhanced medieval bibles and other rare manuscripts are ornamented with exquisite florals, curvilinear motifs interwoven with religious figures, and other exquisite embellishments. More than 350 designs, including 256 letters.
Who were the medieval illuminators? How were their hand-produced books illustrated and decorated? In this beautiful book Jonathan Alexander presents a survey of manuscript illumination throughout Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century. He discusses the social and historical context of the illuminators' lives, considers their methods of work, and presents a series of case studies to show the range and nature of the visual sources and the ways in which they were adapted, copied, or created anew. Alexander explains that in the early period, Christian monasteries and churches were the main centers for the copying of manuscripts, and so the majority of illuminators were monks working in and for their own monasteries. From the eleventh century, lay scribes and illuminators became increasingly numerous, and by the thirteenth century, professional illuminators dominated the field. During this later period, illuminators were able to travel in search of work and to acquire new ideas, they joined guilds with scribes or with artists in the cities, and their ranks included nuns and secular women. Work was regularly collaborative, and the craft was learned through an apprenticeship system. Alexander carefully analyzes surviving manuscripts and medieval treatises in order to explain the complex and time-consuming technical processes of illumination - its materials, methods, tools, choice of illustration, and execution. From rare surviving contracts, he deduces the preoccupation of patrons with materials and schedules. Illustrating his discussion with examples chosen from religious and secular manuscripts made all over Europe, Alexander recreates the astonishing variety and creativity ofmedieval illumination. His book will be a standard reference for years to come.
