FUNDRAISING
OUR FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN HAS STARTED! GOAL: 5000 USD / 7000 CAD AND CURRENTLY AT 8%!
To keep our Library up and running, we hold a fundraising campaign from September to December.
This is the link to the donation button: Donate to keep the Antique Pattern Library running!
Your donation pays for costs of supporting our projects such as scanners and other hardware, the occasional shipping costs for people who want to donate books but can’t afford the transatlantic shipping costs, general costs such as internet service provider, office address, and our application for charity status. Volunteers do the scanning and editing, and new books are paid from our private purses.
Occasionally we get the question “Why don’t you just sell your stuff, you’d need no donation then?” which is correct, but not in accordance with the idea that our heritage should be available to everybody who wants to use or appreciate it, and profit is no part of that. To keep that, we do need donations. So, if you have a couple dollars to spare, we’d be glad to have them!
IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO DONATE, BUT WOULD LIKE TO HELP THE ANTIQUE PATTERN LIBRARY, INTRODUCING THE LIBRARY TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW OF IT YET, IS VERY USEFUL, SINCE IT BROADENS OUR USER BASE AND THEREFORE ALSO OUR FUTURE DONOR BASE. BLOGS, TIKTOK, INSTAGRAM, PINTEREST, RAVELRY, FACEBOOK, OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA – SHOW OTHERS YOUR FAVORITE PUBLICATIONS AND WHAT YOU MADE USING THEM. OUR WORK IS ONLY USEFUL WHEN PEOPLE ACTUALLY USE IT!
And now for the new publication:
AUDSLEY – GUIDE TO THE ART OF ILLUMINATING
B-YS080 Audsley – Guide to the Art of Illuminating on Vellum and Paper
About an earlier edition: “A practical and sensibly written little manual, such as the student may profitably use.”
About this edition: “We venture to think that the student wil find in the present “Guide” everything necessary to direct his study and practice of the beautiful and fascinating Art of Illuminating.”
Small bound softcover with 8 Roman-numeral pages, then 88 numbered pages, then 16 numbered advertisements. Sixteen numbered plates. Plate XIV [14] as frontispiece. Scanned 300dpi.
Scans donated by Sytske Wijnsma, edited by Judith Adele.
Illuminating is not the writing of texts, but the illustrations, beautiful initials, margin illustrations, and sometimes entire pages that are decoration only, with saints, biblical scenes, abstract penwork, lovely flowers, and the occasional daily life scene. Most illuminations are integrated with the text, especially the initials. The oldest illuminated manuscripts are from before the Middle Ages, with their number increasing as time went on, and then after the introduction of the printing press, a sudden decrease. Printed books still had decorated initials and illustrations throughout the texts and on separate pages, but they were never as glorious as the handwritten ones. There were some where the text was printed, and in the place of the initals there was just a small letter intended to be overpainted with a handpainted initial, by that time usually a red or blue letter and sometimes in both colors and some white. There were also printed decorated initials that were intended to be colored and some were, some weren’t.
Diploma’s, certificates and other Very Important Documents might still have decoration that approached the medieval level. In our more hurried times, the illuminating techniques can still be used for smaller items such as greeting cards, and that also gives you opportunity to combine practice with usefulness. Try it out, and in doing so you’ll become part of a traditional craft going back for more than a thousand years! This guide to the art of illumating will help you on your way!