The  North arm of the cross is finished and now I start on the East arm.  I realize now that the tracing, coloring, shading, and outlining of the design take me about an hour per square inch to complete.   I try to put myself in Wearmouth or Jarrow or Lindisfarne about 700 a.d., thinking of the work that went into each page of great illustrated books like the Lindisfarne Gospels. The vellum would be prepared (i.e., kill cows and then scrape and treat their hides),  materials for pigments located and all my sketches done on wax tablets. We don't even know many of the tools that were used, but the results were magnificent.

Now I  read Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People on a Kindle, view a CD of the Book of Kells, or look at theLindisfarne Gospels on the British Museum website, and I don't lose friends on a regular basis to the plague.  I can get used to modern comforts.