Notes from the Studio – February 20, 2024
The Golden Hair of Medusa
Some musings on Typography and Inspiration
Typograph
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While composing each page comes intuitively, I work on typographical designs for hours and hours over weeks and months on each part of a text or calligram, going back to different passages, and making adjustments to querning, spacing, and type design.
For more insight into Athena’s personality, I am including text by Roman poet, Ovid, of the weavings of Athena (goddess of wisdom) and Arachne (turned into a spider by Athena), in the form of an Owl with moon. The calligram design and typography were done in 5 sections in Adobe InDesign, with the owl’s face and feet hand-drawn, scanned, finalized in PhotoShop, and turned into a vector image in Illustrator. I began the design in August and continue to go back in and make small adjustments.
In Illustrator, I draw a form and place text inside the area. This detail of the top of Freud’s Pipe shows different colored text boxes where I re-typed a line, adjusted spacing that was more pleasing to my eye, and realigned it within the design. I make numerous adjustments on every calligram.
Printing on Black
The Black Hours from the Morgan Library has vellum pages that are stained or painted black. There are other examples of illuminations that inspire me, with black or dark purple pages, however since this was not common practice, it is unusual to encounter. I am looking forward to printing on black papers. I love using metallic silver and gold inks and look forward to mixing some lovely grey-blues and dark reds. The digital designs will, of course, come alive once I go to press.
Paper: In my last communication, I was close to placing the order for Rives. My first choice was the paper from the Saint-Armand mill in Montreal, where I had commissioned David to make ivory, tan, and white paper for the Minotaur edition. The mill had been backlogged from 2022 and David was selling part of the business and downsizing. However, since some time had gone by, I checked in with them, and to my delight, was told they could now make paper for me with similar specifications as the last batch. So, I have happliy placed an order for 4 colors, as originally planned: white, light grey, dark grey, and black. The paper will have the lovely deckle on both edges of the folios to match the aesthetic and size of the Minotaur pages. The turnaround is scheduled by mid-March, which seems very quick, but even if delayed, it will be well worth the wait. In the meantime, I continue to work on a number of new drawings.
Additional Inspiration from visits in the past 3 months . . .
