Hello fellow miniature workshop painters!
It was very nice to see you at the monthly forum yesterday and meet some of you I only knew by name.
Here is a picture of our traced painting in A4. A couple of points we would need to agree on before I transfer it to paper and outline:
Is the level of details ok with you?
Do we keep the hunter? Do we remove it? Do we change what he's doing?
Are we all fine with the margins? This was the maximum I could enlarge the picture to fit in A4 while keeping reasonable margins size: the bottom and right margins are 3cm (1 1/8 in). You will see when working on it, the size of the elements in the painting is already challenging to work on in my view. 🐦🐓🌱🍁🌸 There's even a snake 🐍, can you spot it? I only removed the end of the top branch, I think the tree shape still looks good, what's your view? 🌳
Looking forward to hearing what you think. Don't hesitate to send critics, I am very happy to hear any advice to improve it!
Have a great day! 🙂
Dominique
@Sara @Mary Yaeger @Nadia Khan @Susan Dobrian @Anastasia Doran @Ary Nassiri @Vaishali Prazmari
PS: I tagged everyone listed in our shared excel file, sorry of I missed anyone who's participating!
I'm the slow one now.....I need to plan a trip to NYC (which I will do once Ramadan ends). my plan is to go with a palette and mix up a good sized batch of the base colors for the painting which we can mail around to the artists as needed. that rich blue background.....how can we make that color? it looks a bit like azurite to me.
Just making sure this Forum is comprehensive and I've uploaded as good quality images as possible - so here's one for your project I scanned:
@Dominique Fayad this is so, so lovely, and I am so honored to receive this piece next!! i am delighted to be working on this project with such an amazing group of artists.
Thanks Dominique - these are brilliant! I’d love to know what’s been erased too! Also I’ve always wondered what the thing in the tree branches that looks like a hedgehog is, but I suspect it’s a bird nest. I can see it more clearly in your photos Though a hedgehog 🦔 would be more fun. 😉 How fabulous to see the painting in person 🥰🥰🥰 ♥️❤️♥️
Thanks so much, Dominque! These are superb photos and will be loads of help!!
I got the chance the see our original painting at the MET few days ago and thought I would share some pics with you all. It is absolutely incredible to see it in real, the pictures are not doing it justice, the details and colors are mind blowing!! I was also impressed how deep the indigo color is!
I always wondered what does the beige area right to the tree on the purple rock is? Vaishali, do you know? Did they erase smth at some point?
Excited about the next steps and what you are all gonna create!
Happy holidays everyone!
Dominique
Hi Nadia and all!
The miniature painting is on its way to you, Nadia. You should get it on Friday in a waterproof Fedex pouch, the delivery needs a signature. Here is the tracking number: 287590332643.
I got inspired by Vaishali’s flying carpet and started our names list on the back of the painting.
Let me know when you get it and enjoy the color fill! 😃
Dominique
@Sara @Susan Dobrian @Nadia Khan Thank you so much for your patience, understanding, and lovely messages! I moved to the US and I am gradually settling down, hoping to have more time for art practice when my work schedule permits. Our travelling apprenticeship project was always in my mind and I was feeling so bad holding everyone up. I am so happy you like how the tracing and lines came out!
Nadia, can I use the same address as in the sign-up sheet we filled few months ago to mail it to you?
Have a wonderful day and hope to see you soon!🌞
@Dominique Fayad this looks fantastic! can't wait until it's time for the colorfill.
Hey Dominique! 🙌❤️💖🧡🙌 it’s so very very lovely to hear from you 🥰 & I think it looks amazing 👍♥️👍 im delighted the hunter has gone, his time is over. ♥️💖🧡 I’m sorry to hear work has been so busy and time for Art less but THANK YOU soooooooo much for finding the time to finish it! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 this is very exciting. I think it’s beautiful we will all be collaborating from around the globe & I’m still in! We’ll finish it at some point in time! Time - It’s just a linear thing we have no deadline. Slowly slowly we’ll get there, that’s the best way. 😉🥰😍🥰 I hope you are happy & comfortable in your new home. Where about sin the world are you now? Or is that not the best thing to ask in a forum? Anyways sending you BIG Big L💖VE & TH🙏NKS 🙏💙💖💜🙏💙💜🙏🙏💙💜💙🙏🙏🙏💙💙🙏💙🙏💙
PS: this is A4 size :)
Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing well!
I'd like to apologize for my very long silence. Life pulled me away from artistic practice for few months with an international move and a very heavy workload, among other things. I hope I didn't kill the motivation on our travelling apprentice project!
I was finally able to finish transferring and outlining our miniature painting on tea stained and sized hot pressed paper. Our previous exchanges seem to suggest a majority in favor of removing the hunter, so here we are! I guess we can always add something else later in the process if we wish. I kept the calligraphic boxes in the top right and bottom left and hope the lines are faint enough to paint over them if we decide not to keep them.
My lines are not always even and too dark here and there, but I hope it is ok? What do you think?
Wishing you all a great evening/day!
Dominique
More than two months after the poll: I apologize for not voting, but I agree with the choice of just leaving the figure out. I am impressed with the thoughtfulness of the Traveling Apprentices, and the wonderful illustration, Dominique.
I have made a new poll for you now:
https://www.poll-maker.com/poll3731058x4F684e2A-113
Maybe we can accentuate the color on the hoopoe’s head so he’s a bit more obvious — I missed him at first! Was looking for the colors (birder tactic). Thank you, Vaishali and Anastasia, for sorting it all out!
Ah right, thank you @Vaishali Prazmari , that makes sense! I had forgotten the role of the hoopoe - I can see now the birds are all looking at the hoopoe and it works perfectly! In that case I’m happy to completely omit the figure and return it to how it was intended to be, depending on what other people want and how the poll turns out :)
I still say no human figure in it & if something has to go in there is should be a bird / Phoenix / Simaugh. 🦚🦜🦩🕊 going to attempt to vote! Wish me luck! 🤣😂🤣
The image is from “The Conference of the birds” not “The conference of annoying interfering trigger happy human beings!“🤣😂🤣 it’s a joke please don’t be offended!
Big Big L🥰Ve
❤️💛💖🧡♥️💗❤️💛💖🧡🌈
beautiful work! it can be a simple man and not a hunter with a bunch of flowers in his hands as he is in the jungle plucking flowers..it would look lovely. i hope i am not confusing 😄
That's a great idea, Vaishali!
I created a poll: figure or no figure?
https://www.poll-maker.com/poll3725150xF8624Fcd-112
As I think you're all agreed that yes no gun! And if you're going to paint me then yes please I don't want any gun unless it's a water gun hehe! And actually not even that as I don't want to wash off anything about this painting! I am anti violence ;-)
It's your painting so I won't vote and I'll leave all the decisions to you, I'll just help you along the way whatever you decide!
Just historically I think there was no figure at all, as in Anastasia's version, and it was added later which is why the gun is anachronistic. It is also a bit of a dark sense of humour - 30 birds, and soon to be...0!
Here's what the Met has to say:
"The illustration on this folio depicts a scene from a mystical poem, Mantiq al-tair (Language of the Birds), written by a twelfth-century Iranian, Farid al-Din 'Attar. The birds, which symbolize individual souls in search of the simurgh (a mystical bird representing ultimate spiritual unity), are assembled in an idyllic landscape to begin their pilgrimage under the leadership of a hoopoe (perched on a rock at center right). The careful, harmonious composition is consistent with that of the late fifteenth-century Timurid miniatures also in the manuscript, but three factors indicate that this image is later: the presence of the hunter, who has no place in the narrative; his firearm, a weapon that gained currency in Iran after the mid-sixteenth century; and the signature of the late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century artist Habiballah."
Apparently this is a Chekhovian theatre device too: if there is a gun in the first scene then it has to be used in the third. Ie: you don't have props in a play [or artwork?] that have no business being there at all. I would actually argue that's not necessarily true for art, but wanted to throw that in there for you as it involves a gun.