— click thumbnail for a closer look —
For the first time in a long while, I’ve had time to putter around in my studio. I decided to try my hand at Artist Trading Cards. At 2.5″ x 3.5″, they’re quite a manageable project. These are done on Bristol with pastels, walnut ink, gouaches and gel pens, mostly. The theme was a study of a page of a 15th-16th-century manuscript Libro D’Ore (Book of Hours), manuscript BN akc. 12399. It’s in Poland somewhere, and displayed on the Internet here in the “All Roads Lead to Rome” collection.
These aren’t exact copies of the manuscript decoration, since I used paint that was already in palettes and gel pens (for Pete’s sake). It would be more accurate to say that the manuscript page was a jumping-off point for play.
Your ATCs are lovely, and that site – just sumptuous. Thank you so much for finding it and sharing. I suspect I’ll be spending way too much time looking at it over and over.