Here is a commission I undertook earlier this year for writer Shekhar Das. It is an illustration for a work on which he is currently engaged. This extraordinary vision comes from a chapter… Continue reading
I have curated a display of 15th century illuminated manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, which will be open free to the public until the 13th January 2018. It is called “Making Manuscripts… Continue reading
For the past six months I have been engaged in a Fellowship at the Bodleian Library’s Centre for the Study of the Book, University of Oxford. I have been researching a stunning group… Continue reading
Over the years I have run a lot of professional development workshops with artists, craftspeople, conservators and academics who wanted to learn the secrets of making finely ground gold pigments, such as was… Continue reading
On the left is my small collection of first edition books illustrated by Jean de Bosschere, published by John Lane and the Bodley Head between 1923 and 1925. They measure approximately 10 inches… Continue reading
The ultimate study of the harmonograph and its history is provided in a book entitled “Harmonic Vibrations and Vibration Figures” published circa 1909, edited by Herbert C. Newton of Newton & Co., “Scientific… Continue reading
A frequent comment made by viewers of the Iron Genie harmonograph in action, is that it reminds them of the Spirograph. Most of us are familiar with this childhood toy, which consists of… Continue reading
My abiding interest in pigments and their sources has always been a catalyst for a much wider scope of interest, and in the raft of very human impulses that have shaped the history… Continue reading
An artist who had seen some of my previous posts recently gave me a tip-off about an antiquarian harmonograph book at a local Bloomsbury bookshop …. need I say more? Of course I… Continue reading
Bloomsbury is blessed with a wealth of superb second-hand and antiquarian bookshops, so it takes little encouragement for me to fuel my addiction to rare and interesting books. I recently hit a windfall… Continue reading
Examining and re-creating an historical manuscript page is one of the best ways to understand the processes that went into its making, and one that I have employed several times in the course… Continue reading
Update 23 Feb 2014: Thankfully the conservation staff at the National Library and Archives and the team at Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation have managed to save all the manuscripts that were on display, though… Continue reading
Some time ago I happened upon a venerable 1865 edition of Owen Jones’ Grammar of Ornament in an antiquarian bookshop, and after a month or so of obsessing about it, I decided to… Continue reading
