An Italian Award of Arms

In truth, I hadn't painted an Italian scroll before this, and now I'm sort of enamoured! I chose one manuscript, but pages, because I needed the text room. My idea was to do this as I did the Deed scroll, but opted not to fold it as I did the Deed scroll because I didn't have room to do the cuts the way I wanted too. I'll admit, my spacing was off on this one, and it's not centered on the sheet properly, but there is matting room all around it, so I'm happy there.

First, for text, was this: Add MS 15281 f.71v 

Then was this: Add MS 15281 f.72r

These are late period texts, roughly 1524 and is the Prayer Book of Sigismund I of Poland. The illumination was beautiful to me, and for an Italian persona it seemed an excellent source for an Award of Arms. 

The hand here is weird, a sort of crossover hand that I couldn't find reference for anywhere in my calligraphy books, so I just followed the source for all my words. That was new to me, and honestly a LOT of fun. 

The general form of the painting follows the time period and reminds me a great deal of Flemish manuscripts often called "squashed bug", just without the realism in color and deep shading for a 3D effect. Here, the colors are deep and shaded, but the background isn't treated to shading to make the flora stand away from the page. It's deep, but not overly dimensional. 

The finished piece: 

an 8.5"x11" piece of pergamenta in white, which most closely resembles the ground of the manuscript, done with Higgins Eternal ink and Winsor Newton & Holbein gouache. There is no gold on this scroll, as there is no gold on the original. 

My outlining isn't as precise as I wanted it to be, and this is because I didn't use my line tool as I did for the text lining. Even with the text lining I didn't have the gouache at the right consistency, and this I attribute to the fact that my house has a negative humidity right now and I didn't account for that when painting. Now I know! :D 

The words are not my own - I can thank Lord Nicol for them and for his amazing brevity as I had very little room to work with, even with the extra page added. I dearly wanted to avoid having to move down in text size, as I really wanted to reproduce the manuscript 1:1, which I did manage to achieve. I realize that his blazon may be longer than the available space, and for that I am sorry. 

All the flora was sketched freehand, and the flora inside the painted capital wasn't sketched, but painted freehand directly. 

My color matching has been a problem for me, and I do realize that my background is significantly more yellow than the original. I don't feel that's a problem in this case though, as it still sets off the flora nicely. 

I do feel my whitework is better on this piece than on previous pieces and I am renewed in my desire to finish the Flemish piece I started for Laurel's Prize Tournament last year.