August 14, 2008

OOPS! and now this




Sorry I seemed to delete yesterdays message, I never got a chance to reply to the invite from the girl in Leitrim. Oops can you can you post again?

When I was researching for Cinderella, I was allowed access to the Early Printed Books section of Trinity College Library. It was so amazing to be able to handle and make sketches of 15th and 16th century books. The Keeper Charles Benson was amazing. He told me that the collection was catalogued according to author, not by illustrator or content. It was his knowledge of the books and what was contained inside them that helped me so much. I told Charles that I would love to see books similar to the Les Très Riches Heures, a medieval manuscript that was painted by the Limbourg Brothers in the 15th Century. Charles would then disappear down into the vaults and come back with the most amazing illustrated volumes that were a wonderful inspiration to me. I spent many days in the reading room making little pencil notes in my notebook. You are not allowed bring in pens or ink to the reading room. After a few days of this Charles told me 'Why don't you bring in your digital camera and take some photos!' And so I did, the images are out of copyright here are a few little doodles from the drawing days.

2 comments:

Susan at Stony River said...

Hello, that was mine: I'm glad I'm not the only one then, who does such accidental things.

I'd only sympathised with your eating in the car and rain, and said you're welcome to stop in our house instead whenever you're 'out west'. I enjoyed that post!

And this one, too. I used to work in historical archives, cotton gloves and all. I love history, I love books: I was in heaven.

Glad to find you!

Niamh Sharkey said...

oh Hello again! You too! I just had finished posting tonight but it seemed that I was deleting instead! Actually the eating in the car was lovely, our car is pretty messy as you can imagine with three kids. Where are you in Leitrim land?