MME Designs's Weblog

The Illuminators show up in an initial of “I” — design by Meredith Eliassen, 2018.

This is new exploration into the carriers of information that reflect basic humanity… the scribes and painters of illuminations were mobile artisans that transported ideas and styles throughout medieval Europe. Look for more creative folks to show up in the coming months…

Medieval art was collaborative in nature with different artisans working on different stages of projects. Students using hard-point styluses made of metal or bone, or graphite copied the work of masters. Sometimes books were created over multiple generations with flourished pinwork of later artists updated the look of a project. Artisans often mixed a quantity of color and applied it sequentially to different miniatures. Pigments were natural, organic, mineral, or manufactured. Washes were overlaid with tones of varied saturation to provide shadows or highlights. The best blue was manufactured from lapis lazuli; it was very expensive because it was imported from as far away as Afghanistan, so it was use only for luxury images.