Gems & Calligraphy: Part 1

Video Transcript

"Did you ever see this t-shirt? This is a t-shirt that I designed in my Grateful Dead period. And it's relevant because it has to do with what I'm going to talk to you about next. Which is the element of design and illumination that has to do with painting gems. And this t-shirt is sort of the kind of thing that happens when you start getting excited about painting gems. So this is a very fun project for me. So in, I showed you that little Mary of Burgundy thing where around the margins, there were these beautiful paintings of gems. So painting gems is really fun. And what you have to do is, you have to practice painting gems. And so in order to do that, you can look at illuminated manuscripts. And look at all the amazing elaborate paintings that end up in the margins and so on. But you also need to be looking at gems. So you get books on gems. And you look at them. You don't need to have the real gem. O.k.? I have a lot of crystals that look like real gems. But I don't any real gems. It's a lot easier on, on the nerves to not have fabulous, expensive gems in your possessions. So, it's good to have them, up here. Anyway, I'm going to show you just a really quick idea about how to put a gem on a page. My Windsor-Newton, Windsor-Newton green, Emerald green. Windsor-Newton green happens to look very, very much like an emerald. So and this is actually a water color. So, I would maybe do that first. Wait a second. And then return. You don't have to hold the page, perpendicular when you're not doing letters. You can just turn it any way, you need to."