Award Commission

I was very excited when Melia, the key organizer of the Utah Winter Faire, contacted me to create award artwork for two sword fighting competitions to be held at the Winter Faire this year.

These are based on the Stefan Lochner Gebetbuch (aka Prayer Book) c. 1451. Despite the huge lead time I was provided, I was unable to start on these immediately due to personal reasons, and ended up finishing the second piece the night before the Faire, largely because I greatly underestimated how long it would take to paint the tiny gold details on all the orbs.

Due to this timing, I varied from period practice on the versals, but feel that they fit the feel of the overall pieces despite this. Normally the versals would be grounded on detailed diapering (tiny repetitive patterns), and the letters would be decorated with whitework. This modelbook also sports quite a bit of miniature work with the versals - a beautiful decorative feature that I simply didn't have the time to do.

Obviously, I used the same design for both pieces, but changed the color schemes, including the gold. While I feel that the second piece is very elegant on its own, the gold I chose was much cooler in tone and didn't have the same "zing" that the warm gold has, when compared side by side.  I'd love to hear your opinions/thoughts.

Pictures taken at strange angles to give you an idea of the light reflections on these extremely sparkly pieces. Click on the images to see up close.

The gold used is Finetec Artist Color Gold set, which are pan gouach paints made of mica. The shade above on the first is called Inca Gold, and below I used Moon Gold.