Pink and sapphire zibellino

Not bad for a first try if I do say so myself.  I want to figure out how to give it a better polish and work with the ears a bit more so it isn't quite so "mouse looking" (as my 8 year old tells me.) On the whole, though, I'm pretty happy with it.

I still want to try doing some pewter casting of bits for the girdle and the drop to attach it, but I settled for a purchased finding for now since the month disappeared into carving and I just plain ran out of time.

The muzzle is made from bronze colored foil tape, and I wrapped some blue crystals in the tape to give it the look of actually being set.  I am really thrilled with the effect.  May have to do it to more beads for clothing decoration in the future.

 
I'm sorta kinda toying with the idea of seeing if I can get some jet and try carving that.  There are zibellinos in inventories made from that.  Most notable is an ermine with a jet head in Mary Queen of Scott's belongings.  Jet is apparently very soft to carve, but can be difficult to take detail since it can break.  It'd be an entirely different experience.  The black would certainly be a contrast to the soft pink of the rose quartz.  Also, and this is sort of rather nifty, jet is available to find in Utah.  It is not the highest quality of jet, but I'm not the greatest carver, so who knows if I'll notice.

Quartz dust in the hair is not to be recommended

I need to add a hat or scarf to my protective equipment. I started out working with the cutting wheel to remove some of the unwanted bulk at the back edge. I'm also cutting the rock into a few smaller pieces.  Vaguely toying with shaping and polishing them up and setting them into the pewter findings I'm hoping to cast to make the girdle belt.  That may be FAR too ambitious for the next two weeks, however.

I was a bit too overzealous and pushed the first wheel, rather than letting it work it's own way through the stone.  Hence the discoloration.  It will wash off, so that isn't an issue.  Other than the destruction of the cutting wheel.

 After the third day (and an interval of waiting for more wheels in the mail, when I upgraded) of cutting, I shifted to starting to do some shaping and some smoothing with my carving bits, just to hopefully make myself feel better about progress.  It isn't actually as bad as I just made it sound; I have limited time for carving due to the noise and the fact that I need to do it after the kids are asleep, so there is a little window between bedtime and the point when it is to loud.  We're also pretty close to our neighbors, so powertools after 9 is probably not the best idea.

The stone is smoothing nicely, and it at least feels good, even if it doesn't look much different yet.

Rose quartz zibellino

A dress was obviously not inspiring me.  I was getting sort of excited about couching an interlace pattern in silver on the green sleeves, but to do it the way I really wanted to, a month deadline was a bit tight.  Especially after wasting 2 weeks. So, I'm shifting gears and trying something a little wacky. 

I had seen this extant zibellino head carved from rock crystal on both Sable Greyhound and Oonagh's site.  Not much info is available on it, other than it is in the Thyssen collection in Zurich.  More recently, I found another view of it at Bridgeman Art, originally from Christies.  I've made 4 zibellinos at this point, and my excuse for making them from polymer clay was that I couldn't afford materials and I didn't have the skill.  I've had a piece of rose quartz kicking around the house for ages, and with the pink theme for this challenge, I started thinking about using it as a replacement for the clear quartz that is rock crystal.  Skill, well, that's probably still an issue, but I have the diamond drill bits I got to carve the signet ring and a Dremel tool, so I figured I really didn't have anything to lose but time.

I also had the reddish mink I had planned to make the pair of zibellini from for IRCC 2.  I rather like the redheaded mink and the pink.  Conveniently, my chunk of quartz is already close to the right size and sort of has a snoutlike pointy end.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure I'll actually get the shape I want since it is pretty thin on one side of that projection.  That's something that is still up in the air.

I started looking around for what it would actually take to cut quartz.  Basically, you need a diamond cutting blade/wheel as the stuff is pretty far up there on the hardness scale.  A respirator is needed since the dust isn't something that should be getting in your lungs.  Safety glasses are a must due to the dust, sparks, and glass like bits it throws off.  Coveralls are good so you're not getting hit by the shards and the dust.

I've worked with bone before, so I had equipment to stop the dust, and safety glasses.  I bought a set of diamond cutting wheels for my Dremel for $8 plus shipping. (Dremel doesn't sell them, but there are off brands that fit.)  A water wheel would have been nice, but I settled for working in a plastic box and swapping that out with mineral oil.  It seems to be working,  Mostly.

Even more planning

I know, I know. Nothing much to see here. I have made bits and pieces of progress, but there's nothing to see yet. I've taken a few reference photographs of the kids for their miniature portraits and started writing the poetry. Well, I've put a few random words down on paper in forms that sort of vaguely resemble Petrarchan structure. It certainly isn't poetry at this point.

I'm trying to decide how crazy I want to be and if I want to weave the inkles (narrow strips of fabric) to attach the endbands of the book to. Its a late period method, but it was done and the bookbinding business was a big employer of the inkleweaver. It won't be seen, so it might be a good place for my unskilled weaving to be. It would add more authenticity, more handwork, and more things for me to babble about. Its also more work for no particular reason.

Other things to think about include the leather. Apparently goatskin was more common in Italian books than calfskin. I don't know how it would work with the cuir-cisele (water carving) I'm planning to use for the tooling of the cover though. There is this extant book box dated to 1475 from either Venice or Lombardia that is Italian, goatskin, and cuir-cisele so I'm probably safe but I have no experience with using goatskin leather so I'm nervous. I really love the central medallion on the book box though and it is causing me to consider changing my design to once again use the krin motif.

More planning

I feel like Pooh Bear. "Think, think, think." That's how the first day of the mini-challenge has gone. I've just been thinking. I have decided to meld several of the ideas. I think I'm going to do a series of Petrarchan love sonnets about the kids and Gandhi and the "wondrous occurrences" of our lives. I'll use the frame from the German manuscript since it is used in each of those miniatures 9although the flowers vary)and do miniatures to accompany the sonnets.

I was going through our wondrous occurrences, and there are actually quite a few that I think will illustrate well. My husband and I both realized we were in love while flying kites and celebrate our "kite anniversary." The illustration above is from Konrad Kyeser's 15th century "Bellifortis." I'm looking at other kite images, but since kites seem to be primarily of military use, its going to be stretch to use them. Not that that I won't. Should be a fun scene to draw. I'm going to start the poem tomorrow.

Getting ready to start the mini-challenge

I spent most of today running payday errands, but driving around gave me time to think about my book. I had planned to concentrate just on the binding, but I got some fun ideas. I've been thinking about maybe writing some poetry in Italian forms and putting those into the the book. The other idea I had was to use the structure behind a MS in the National Library of Dublin. Its German, called "Von Wundersamen Begebenheiten" or "Of Wondrous Occurrences." It's 37 miniatures with basically captions. They're sort of like emblems. They're various mythic, magical sorts of things. The one above is the idea that lions have to roar at their cubs to bring them to life. There are also things like Circe turning men into pigs, phoenixes rising from the ashes, and virgins carrying water in a sieve. The point of the MS is that wonderful things happen so of course Mary could give birth to Christ as a virgin. I think I would want to be less specific and just focus on the magic that is in my and my children's lives. It just seems right for a project that will finish up on Halloween (which is also my anniversary.)

Going to let it brew in the back of my brain for awhile. It might be possible to combine the two ideas.

I did go look at paper stocks. I was considering a cotton rag paper since linen rag isn't exactly easy to get. Budget is an issue though, since this isn't supposed to be a giant project (despite that it gets bigger every time i think about it) and its a practice project since its a first try. Therefore, I went cheap and just picked up some 90 lb cold pressed watercolor paper. Lightweight and easy to fold, it should at least be fun to play with. Guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Assuming I make a decision.

The new mini-challenge is up!

Bella just put up the new mini-challenge at Realm of Venus that will run next month. The theme is "Idle Hands." You have the month of October to make an item that would be held in or worn on the hands. The winner will be the prettiest and most period. I love the concept, its so very different from the "do as much as you can in 4 months" marathon that is the IRCC. Is it sad that I already know exactly what I want to make?

I really like the last set of pictures we took when doing my dress where I am holding my rosary and the little book of selections from The Hastings Book of Hours.  It made me wish I had a better book.  So many of the period portraits have the sitter holding a book in their hands.  So, I've decided to make a book of hours.

I was lucky enough to get to look at Randy Asplund's 3" high illuminated book of the life of Jeanne d'Arc made using entirely period techniques at Southern Regional Collegium a couple of years ago and have wanted to do something similar ever since.  I am NOWHERE even in the realm of his awe inspiring talent and dedication, but hope I can make something nice as a first attempt.  I've had a couple of classes in bookbinding and have made a few journals, but nothing of this magnitude.

I'm going to concentrate on the bookbinding itself and decorative binding primarily.  I found a really interesting article examining fifteenth-century bookbinding structure and comparing the differences (or lack thereof) of printed books and hand copied ones.  I need to work through this bibliography as well.  I'm really intrigued by the cartolai, Florentine workshops of booksellers.  There was a significant amount of decoration of printed texts coming out of their workshops (Randy's Joan is actually printed text as well.)  I'm totally on board with illuminating printed books.  To be honest, my calligraphy is atrocious but I really enjoy painting.  There's also the question of time.  I want to make sure I have the time to really do what I want.  I'm deeply in love with this Italian tooled leather cameo binding from around 1529 and want to do something similar.   I'd almost decided to just bind a blank journal, but I think I'd like some text.  That's still provisional since I know trying to do illumination to already bound pages is not going to be much fun.  There also might be a book curse, even though they had fallen a bit by the wayside by this time.  They're just so full of awesome.  Also, I'm teaching a class on "How to keep track of your stuff: book curses, book plates, and decorative bindings" at kingdom collegium in November so it will be nice to have a visual aid.