One of my favorite materials to work on when doing calligraphy and illumination is vellum. It’s so smooth and forgiving, more so than paper. It’s easy to gently scrape away mistakes and re-letter or paint.

When you search for information about vellum on the internet it is a little hard to find much about how to frame animal skin vellum (aka parchment). I learned from Harvest last year that the last family owned parchment preparer left in the US is Pergamena. They offer many types and so far I’ve only tried their calfskin vellum which is amazing.

Anyway, I did some calling and emailing for information about framing a couple months ago because I wanted to make a piece for the San Antonio Calligraphers’ Guild show on vellum. I found out that Kurt Youngblood Framing in SA was a good place to go and asked them lots of questions before I started the piece. They told me that essentially it’s best to make a pocket for the vellum anchoring the corner with corners that look like photo corners. They told me I should have at least half and inch margin all the way around. The vellum would be sandwiched between two layers of matboard without using an adhesive just the corners to keep it in place. The pocket would allow the vellum to move a little as temperature and humidity changed. Also having two matboard layers between the piece and the vellum makes sure that any raised gold doesn’t touch the glass and adhere.
This is my finished piece framed by Kurt Youngblood and ready to hang at the exhibit. They did such a nice job and quickly too (a week!).