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Meredith A. Bailey

"Aerlinn in Edhil o Imladris" by Meredith A. Bailey

SF&F Picture 2 out of 39 by Meredith A. Bailey
 
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SciFi and Fantasy Art Aerlinn in Edhil o Imladris by Meredith A. Bailey
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Tag As FavoriteComment		This all started when I bought the wrong sized frame, and was left trying to figure out what to do with it. Concurrently reading Tolkien's 'Fellowship,' I decided to try my hand at a little Elven calligraphy. Little did I realize what I was getting into. After using a handy cheat computer program to (imperfectly) translate the Hymn of the Elves at Rivendell, I spent 6 hours painstakingly gridding out guidelines and sketching in the tengwar in mechanical pencil. Another 2 or 3 hours was spent designing the border, and about the same amount of time inking the script. I filled these in using India ink and Koh-i-noor Rapidograph technical pens (first time I'd ever used those, making for an interesting crash course in inking) and painted the leaves, berries, and illuminated letters using Speedball drawing inks, which took another 2 or 3 hours. The knotwork and border are colored with a Prismacolor metallic gold pencil.

Of course, having spent all this effort on this, I was cursed with the standard artist's annoyance of having the vibrant colors lost in the scanning and reducing process, and having to combine 7 separate scans of different sections of the piece to make a full image. Curse small scanners!

For those wondering what this says, I refer you to Tolkien, or to this site here.

24 in. x 18 in., India ink, drawing ink and colored pencil on paper, December 31, 2002.


DateNameComment 
14 Jun 200345 Wolfie dragonrider17198@hot...com>
What does it say? And could you please send one to my e-mail

2 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "You mean send you a copy of it? You can just save it off this page, if you like, but I can still send you a copy. The link posted in the info will bring you to a translation, but I'll copy it here, too:A Elbereth Gilthoniel, (O Elbereth who lit the stars)silivren penna míriel (glittering down white like jewelso menel aglar elenath! (from the firmament, star-host glory!)Na-chaered palan-díriel (Gazing far to the distance)o galadhremmin ennorath, (from tree-tangled middle-lands,)Fanuilos, le linnathon (Fanuilos, to thee I will sing)nef aear, sí nef aearon! (on this side of ocean, here on this side of the Great Ocean!)"
10 Oct 200345 D.F.
Wow, that's really beautiful. Very, very impressive. Now if you'll forgive a bit of nit picking (I am freakishly obsessive about Elvish, my apologies)...the poem is in Sindarin, so it'd rather make sense to write it in Sindarin. This is written in Quenya. Almost the same alphabet, but there are differences. One of these weird little differences is a lack of the letter "g" by itself in Quenya, so this winds up as a hymn to Elbereth Ilthoniel. Not, of course, that this matters overmuch. I just can't resist commenting on Elvish stuff 10

12 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Thank you! Nitpick away! Like I said, it was imperfectly translated through the program I was using, and I realized halfway through that I was missing crucial tengwar...like the G's, for example! I decided that most people probably wouldn't notice, and it was too late to change it anyway, so I left it as is. Thanks for the primer on elven, tho 2 "
19 Jan 200445 'Alim
"Thank you!"
This has got to be the most beautiful and lovingly made piece of Tengwar calligraphy I've found on the net. Thank you for this gift and inspiration. Have you done any more pieces like this? If not - please - don't be shy.
God bless ya - SHaLoM.

3 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun working on it. It was definitely very rewarding. I ended up giving it to a good friend of mine who is a big Tolkein fan. The only other similar piece I've done is "Elbereth Gilthoniel," also posted in this gallery (the one with the elven statues)."
16 Aug 200445 Carolin Emily Southern
I've never tried illuminating any form of elven, but I havedone Katakaanian, and I know how forever that must have taken. The celtic knotwork far outpasses any of mine (yours comes out about the same size!) and you have, in my opinion, done a very very good job. Looks like it came right out of some elven hymn book.

I too am a bt of a Tolkien fan, and from that aspect.. *gives artist a big hug and a plate of cookies*

3 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "COOKIES! YAY! I luv cookies. Thanks!! I found the best way to get the celtic knotwork to come out even is to do a LOT of measuring and premarking very lightly in pencil. A quick shortcut/variation: I choose a repeating design, and draw one iteration of it on a scrap piece of paper. I scribble in pencil on the back, and then trace it (like carbon copy) over and over again on the artwork. This has the problem, tho, that it doesn't always line up well."
28 Jan 2005:-) Igor Armiach
On second thought, why did you write Iltoniel instead of Gilthoniel ?

12 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Because, as pointed out in the notes above, the program I used to translate the poem translated it imperfectly, and all the "G's" are missing as a result. So much for double-checking!"
28 Jan 2005:-) Igor Armiach
Very clearly written. Beautiful work.
Utterly elven.

2 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Thank you!"
29 Jan 2005:-) Igor Armiach
That's a shame.
You should learn Tengwar. It is safer than counting on programs. And some fun.
Good luck.

12 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "There's a lot of things I should learn...problem is just finding the time to learn them! Tengwar is definitely fun, maybe someday I'll be able to get back to learning it..."
5 Sep 200545 Carolin Emily Southern
Over a year has passed since I last looked at this, and to be honest, i'd forgotten about it. Since then I'vestarted work on my own illuminated version of the very same hymn. I've also sadly loaned all my Katakaanian examples of calligraphy off, so they -still- aren't in my gallery. I also still admire this example of calligraphy. It really does look like it came straight out of an elven hymnbook...

12 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Thank you, again! I hope you upload some, at some point, because I"d like to see it!"
24 Oct 200545 Elfdaughter
I love this - as a scribe and illuminator myself, I can understand how much work has gone into this....thanks for the tips on drawing celtic knotwork, I'll apply that to my next piece.

1 Meredith A. Bailey replies: "Thank you!"
25 Aug 2007:-) Anna Mason
I was just going to say it was sindarin poem written in quenya, but someone beat me to the punch! Dang oh well... Its very nice, the use of blue on the... Important? Key? Certain?... Words... Its nice.
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About 'Aerlinn in Edhil o Imladris':
 • Status: OK
 • Created by: :-) Meredith A. Bailey
 • Copyright: ©Meredith A. Bailey. All rights reserved!

 • Keywords: Elven, Elf, Calligraphy, Elbereth, Gilthoniel, Imladris, Rivendell, Hymn, Holy, Illumination, Script, Tengwar, Quenya, Sindarin, Font
 • Categories: Elf / Elves, Still Life, Items (Like books, swords, shields), Book Illustration
 • Techniques: Coloured Pencils, Black Ink, Coloured Ink
 • Inspirations: JRR Tolkien
 • Views: 403
 • Resolution: 493x650


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