The Trisagion

The prayer of the thrice holy, the name comes from the original Greek ("holy" in Greek is "agios", and repeated through the prayer would be literally a tri-agios). This prayer I discovered from the Eastern Orthodox side of the Church, and fell in love with the feel of its repetition instead of the customary repitition of the Jesus Prayer.

As far as the calligraphy goes, honestly, I just wanted an excuse to try my hand at real calf vellum again. This was my second attempt at using this fine medium, and I absolutely adore it. Though the text is more gothic, their is a heavy influence of Irish and some French illumination throughout.

This was also my first attempt at using the 23K gold leafing. This I found to be a painstakingly difficult process. I like my 23K gold leaf inks and paints, and I think I'll stick with those for now. This piece actaully shows all three forms of gilding. The gold in the Hs is from the loose gold leaf while that of the upper cross is gold leaf ink and the smaller crosses and leaves at the bottom are gold flecked paint.

Materials used:
Calf parchment vellum
23K gold leaf
Gold leaf ink
Gold leaf paint
India ink
waterproof inks
metalic inks
Acrylic paints

Size: 8 x 5 in.