Robert Byerley Invitation to Flight children pictures

I choose four of my sold out images; four of my personal favorites, to began our new project: “Creation”, “Jackpot”, “Invitation To Flight”, and “Newborn Child”. I designed each decorative boarder to relate, in a design sense, to the essence or feeling of each individual painting.

The name we chose for our new product was “Illuminations”. The word is actually an old calligraphy term. Centuries ago, when monks meticulously copied manuscripts by hand they would select the first letter of the first word of a page and decorate that letter in a very ornate, highly detailed style. They would draw the letter very large and perhaps add an ornate border of flowers and cherubs to enhance or beautify it. This large decorative letter was known as an illumination and many man-hours of labor were spent to create it.

We laid a white border around the illuminated form and added a very soft, faint background. We then silk-screened three dimensional layers of varnish onto the foreground image to create an interesting texture.