The Virtues: Grace (in progress)

With all the talk of Deeds lately, I've been thinking about the virtues most often assigned to Knighthood.

I've also been thinking about my desire to paint another piece on vellum.

And thus is where I landed for this project: Grace. In the original she is not Grace, she is Amity, and she is not alone. She is in a square of 4 virtues, not alone.

pencil on vellum

source

inked

The inking is where everything went sideways. My nib size was much too large, and the lines are far too thick. I plan to work around that as best I can, but I realize it will change the look of the final piece.

I altered her face for this - she is not wearing a veil over her face in the original. I can paint faces, but as I was sketching her she felt hidden to me, and I decided to veil her instead.

This piece is on hold currently as I work on a project for King and Queens Arts and Sciences Competition in the East.

A Japanese backlog

Malagentia held a Scribal Moot a few weeks back and I attended, as eager as I was when Quintavia held Iron Scribe.

Where Quintavia's event was a head to head "competition" (which here means a great day of painting and laughter and a bunch of scribes going "oooo! look at this one!!"), Malagentia's was a more laid back event. No competition, just a drive to complete assignments for the East.

I was given one that was already calligraphed and asked to add artwork. It was not my usual style, if I can even say I have a usual style... but I took the assignment none the less.

The result:

gouache on bristol, illumination only

A Japanese style, for an award that entails far too much block color for the time. I went with as simple an option as possible, minimal color and mostly line in some cases. I revised this heavily from the source material - the source was a painted screen, and had far more flowers and reeds. The words took up a lot of space, and I felt the openness was lost, so I went for less and didn't try to color the flowers much so they would add to the open nature of the piece. 

Overall I am happy with the piece. It is far outside my comfort zone, and so working on this with the aid of so many of my fellow scribes around for a "hey, does this look ok?" was really helpful. It was great to get outside my comfort zone like that.