Please excuse the poor quality photograph.

This was the first black hours based scroll I ever did, and because it was done before I got to go to New York and actually look at and turn the pages of the extant black hours owned by the Hispanic Society of America, I used techniques that weren't used in the production of the original manuscript (that's the problem with trying to do something when your only source is a photgraph).

But for a first try I thin it turned out pretty well. Of course, I know every mistake I made on it. But as a learning experience, it couldn't be beat.

I used an entire book of gold leaf on this and an entire bottle of PVC glue (a good modern substitute for lead gesso IMO) to do the gold. Every bit of gold on this is leaf, even the thin vines.

I had intended on colouring the flowers and initial backgrounds blue and green like Pierpont Morgan MS 493 but after laying the white gouache so the colours wouldn't fall into the background, I like dhte way it looked so much that I left it that way. I used Winsor and Newton white ink to do the other lettering. The blank area was left for the signatures of TRM and to put the Middle Kingdom seal on the scroll.

And yes, the calligraphy is really poor compared to what I can do now (this was made six years ago).

Materials used: 16" X 20" LetraMaxx design board, (far too much) 24K gold leaf, PVC glue, stylus (to score the guidelines), Winsor & Newton white ink and gouache