I decided to make my illumination a present for my best friend. He is the biggest fan of the European soccer team, Manchester United. Because of this, I chose to center the illumination around his name and Man United.

I started by drawing a T because that’s the first letter of his name. I then drew the Manchester United logo  behind the T.  I realized that if I took away the ball on the right side of the logo, it would make a C, which is the first letter of his surname. So I decided to have two, instead of the usual one, historiated letters in my illumination. I drew a red devil fork wrapping around the T because Man United’s nickname is “The Red Devils” which explains the character in the logo. I added some decorations in the fork and the C, along with some simple borders. I lay down the initial line work with pencil then went over it with black ball point pen (because it doesn’t bleed when painted over).

I used watercolor to paint some of the areas, then added gold leaf. It was the most tedious part of the illumination. It took a lot of time and patience. It took me a total of 2.5 hours to add gold leaf to the 16 areas that I put it on.

I initially thought my drawing was complete as it is in the image above. But I realized that the T, the most important part of the drawing, was being overshadowed by the darker, more detailed elements. To solve this, I stained the white background black using ink. The contrast between the dark background and the bright yellow T shifted the focus to the T, which is what I wanted.

Here are some details of my final illumination.

 

                  

I used a lot of red and yellow because those are the colors of Man United’s logo and home jersey. I also used a lot of blue because that is the color of the team’s away jersey. There is also a “hidden” very cheesy message in it.

I really enjoyed creating this illumination (all 15 hours of it) and I am happy to have learned a new style of art. I am curious to know what everyone else did for their illuminations and what their final piece looks like! Post photos please! 🙂