Celtic Manuscript Design Course
With Thomas Keyes
This workshop is part of the EcoCreative Cluster 2022 Programme: Nurturing Creativity, Piece by Piece.
Funded by Creative Scotland.
Dates: Friday 16th September and Saturday 17th September
Time: 10.00am to 4.00pm
Place: Hawthorn Room, The Rockfield Centre
Age: 14+
Cost: £12
Booking is essential for this event
Art workshop
This one day course will cover the process of creating a medieval style insular book illumination (or manuscript) with artist Thomas Keyes.
Thomas Keyes will be hosting this workshop on two dates, with each full day session involving working on real parchment with traditional pigments. Participants will first learn some techniques to design their piece using geometry and Celtic motifs before making their own oak bark ink to outline their design in class. Participants will then colour in their design with a range of natural pigments, including woad and cudbear.
The theme of the illuminations will be the Celtic tree alphabet, each piece being inspired by a single letter, its associated tree and Gaelic name. All of the final pieces will later be displayed together as one collaborative installation at The Rockfield Centre in January 2022, before being returned to each artist following the exhibition.
The ink and quill made on the course can be taken home by participants, along with a sample of parchment for further practice at home using your new skills learnt on this course.
This is a one day workshop where participants will contribute to our EcoCreatives 2022 Programme. All participants will be credited alongside their work in the resulting exhibition at The Rockfield Centre.
Your Tutor Thomas Keyes grew up in Northern Ireland, beginning letter arts as a graffiti writer in the 1990’s. Now based on the Black Isle, he uses the materials and techniques of early medieval insular scribes to create contemporary manuscript art on parchment that takes inspiration from the Gaelic origin legends and a range of contemporary themes. Working with academics studying in fields as diverse as laser pigment analysis, Gaelic history and Latin liturgy, the quest for accurate reconstruction of ancient techniques and finding sound foundations for new artistic interpretations often take up more time than producing the artwork itself.
This workshop has kindly been supported by Creative Scotland.
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