A Golden Mantle in an English Style

When I found out that two very good friends of mine were being honored, I was even happier to realize that I could get both assignments. It's not the first time that I had two active assignments for one event, but it's the first time I knew them both so well.

The first was for Symon of Barnesdale - an English persona. Having just done words for his Silver Crescent, I had a wealth of options for reference text. I settled on this:
Add MS 24686 f 26v  The Alphonso Psalter c 1284-1316

It was missing elements that I knew were necessary - two cats (as he has two cats) and thrown weapons because that's what the award is being given for. In some cases, I know scribes are intrested to overload the marginalia with all the things the recipient loves but I went to the side of following the exemplar in this case.

I made one modification, I shortened the text to keep a space open on the right for the award medallion, a Golden Mantle hanging off the end of a spear.

 The finished piece. It measures almost 1:1 for the original. Natural pergamenata, Higgins Eternal black ink, Winsor & Newton and Holbein gouache, gold leaf with minatum.

I am very happy with how this piece turned out. My white work is closer to the original, but humidity was kicking me and it got a little thick in places. I am much happier with my calligraphy on this piece than with other pieces and I credit doing this hand a lot lately with that.

This is the first time I've done gold leaf on an active assignment. I didn't leaf before calligraphy, mostly because I had such a hard time deciding if I was gilding this or not. I'm glad I decided to.

I feel better about my lining on this piece. It was all done with a crow quill and Higgins ink. Likewise, my knotwork in the center of the D is better on this piece than on others and I dare say I'm getting better at that. The dragon in there makes me smile.