I do a lesson on St. George and the Dragon, and as part of that we look
at illuminated capitals and acanthus leaves. I have some nice capital
letters enlarged from the old Speedball book and we learn how to trace
them and transfer them to watercolor paper, and then we illuminate them.
Some of them use the negative space for pictures, some make space inside
the letter for the same. I learned that removing the stress of drawing
the letter made it a lot more enjoyable for my level of students. I do a
short lesson on drawing Acanthus leaves twisting and they love that.
Then we finish them off with Sargent's gold paint.