Not so Miniature Bestiaries for Christmas

For Christmas I was asked by my sister to give her children illuminated pieces instead of more toys. She indicated that my nephew loves dragons and my niece loves unicorns. 

I was ecstatic to say yes. 

Both are done on perg with W&N and Holbein gouache. Gold is shell and Holbein. Pieces are roughly 4x6. 

(They were well received!) 

My brother's daughters received pieces of artwork from me as well, but in a more modern style that I haven't included on my blog, as this is dedicated to my medieval works. 

A Norse Epic AoA, on commission

When the call went out for submissions for TRM Wilhelm and Vienna's travel fundraiser I decided it was time to put out the offer of a scroll. I had no idea people would bid so hard for it! I was floored and very grateful that I was able to help the travel fund so well.

The winner contacted me and told me her husband had received his AoA but got a promissory... ten years ago. Not only was this a commission, but it was a backlog from AS42. I was thrilled to be able to fulfil not only the backlog but to create something in his new chosen persona.

I set to work and immediately contacted Nicol to do the words. He has an excellent way with them and I needed his voice to really make this scroll special. I'm honored he said yes. (and had the words to me so quickly!)

His persona is Norse, and the length of time it took him to receive his actual scroll and the fact that his persona changed over that decade meant that his story was much like the great Sagas that the Norse love so well. And, he's a blacksmith.

So I went back to Regin and his smithy, and the Saga of Sigfried, with words based on Rasmus Anderson’s translation of the Skáldskaparmál, and wrote it all in translated Rune. 

There is a Runic ductus that was published by Lady Helena Sibylla in her Faux Hands for Non-European Scrolls handout that I used for this scroll. I will freely admit that I should have done a little more research before translating the words into rune, and I didn't follow all the structures necessary to have a proper runic translation though I did follow what was already in the ductus. Any mistakes in the translation are mine. 

I have used the bottom roundel before, but in a rather different style - there I used the same color for the whole illumination and only varied the direction of the lines to give the piece depth. Here, I outlined the entire piece in black and gave the piece the look of stone with a wood backing. 

The original is on a door in Norway, a stave church depicting imagery from a Norse saga.  Specifically, the Hylestad stave church, 12th century.

One of the things I immediately noticed when working with this piece for the second time was how close the face shapes are to what we see in the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels. The layout of the beard, and the shape of the eyes, as well as the lack of serious care for body proportions all lay very close to other illuminations of the era. I found that quite exciting to see. 

As he is Norse, the shield for his arms is round instead of a traditional heater shape. Although it doesn't look it in the photo, there is a 1" border around the piece. I have omitted portions of the original to clean up the look and fit my design. The piece is done on perg with Higgins ink and W&N gouache. 

The text: 

To the East Kingdom, and to its King Konrad and Queen Brenwen, came Brendr Bjorndall.  He carried the hammer of a smith, a great iron head on firm oak handle, and when it swang, Thor would laugh greatly in the sound of its strikes.  In the days of the 42nd Year, as Bhakail sees their Baron and Baroness invested, has he been called before the Throne and awarded Arms, thus his shield bears these marks:

Hear now the songs of the eagles, for no man now living or ever after would be born who would be equal to him in strength, courage, and ken.  Boldness and generosity has he above all men, and his name will be written in the lore of that great kingdom.

- words by Lord Nicol MacDonnaught

To Emulate a Book...

   

Recently the Calligrapher's Guild of Carolingia (and friends) went on a field trip to the Houghton Library at Harvard University. We saw, handled, and examined in detail a selection of manuscripts from their extensive collection. The Curator pulled pieces for us that aren't digitized yet, so we were seeing pieces that we couldn't view online.

Among the selection were a letter from Elizabeth 1 from before she was Queen, and a letter from Charles V, penned by his own hand.

The viewing also included a tiny leather bound book of 203 pages. It is beautiful - and tiny. 6cm across, 8cm high, 4cm deep. It fits in the palm of your hand. It just capivated me in a way that other books have not, and so I've decided that one of my side research projects will be to learn more about the book and eventually create a book in that style and size on a subject I'm not settled on yet. I don't want to exactly replicate the book, I'd rather take the elements, learn from them, and create a book that could be it's second half.

Photos of the book can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/KXzNptk4vSSGFSkd8 

A Golden Mantle in a Norse style

The second assignment! This one I went and asked for, but I dearly wanted to be the scribe. Thankfully my boss said yes ;)

I've worked from the Urnes Stave Church doorway in Oslo before, and I knew I wanted to for this one as well. See, the recipient is changing his persona as we speak. His lady and I spoke often about his choices, and he was settling on Norse/Rus. I decided a doorway was a perfect metaphor for his new persona, and rolled with it.


This is the doorway, in its entirety. A man can fit through that entrance. It depicts serpents and horses, and the pattern is echoed on the actual door itself as well. I've used the design in part, but I wanted the grand nature of the doorway, and I wanted it to frame the text, hence using the whole piece.


This was another exercise in color choices though, as the doorway may have once been painted it is now just the grey of weathered wood. You can see spots of ochre around the doorway, but that wasn't enough for me to base the whole piece on, so I instead went with colors I knew he'd like. 

Kazimierz has not yet chosen a new name, and so to reflect this, I used the words "in common tongue" before his name, to denote that he may be known as something else in the future. 

The piece is on natural pergamentata and painted with Winsor & Newton gouache, and Higgins Eternal ink.

The shading of the background is done in purple and grey, the interior is done in only red. All the text is black. The hand is a faux runic, and is completely in English. The only metallic on the whole scroll is the Golden Mantle itself and I seriously debated about doing that in a metallic paint, but ultimately decided that yes, as it's not actually part of the original design, it should be metallic. I altered the knotwork just enough to get a hanging point for the Mantle. That is the only alteration to the original piece.

This is not 1:1 to the original. I do admit that I left far less margin space on this piece than I do on many, but I am not worried. There is sufficient space for the mat to sit.

There are no solid blocks of color on this scroll - everything is shaded in tiny lines.

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.

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. 

English sheet music Silver Brooch

So when I found out that a local harpist was the recipient of the Silver Brooch scroll I was assigned, it was clear I needed sheet music to be the inspiration piece. I love painting sheet music, mostly because despite the fact that the only instrument I play is the iPod, I love period music.

And the search began. Her persona is defined, so I insisted on keeping it period to her persona. Enter the Walters. This is one of theirs - a scant 4 folios of sheet music from one source, but lucky for me one of them was already a capital S. 1400's English.

This is the chosen page: W 745, f. Br - Two leaves of Antiphonary

I chose not to use the imagery in the capital, and instead replaced it with bench holding a harp. I played on the period practice of breaking the box and had the Brooch "pinned" around the outside edge. I really love how that looked once finished, and kept the outside decoration to the edge of the letter, instead of following the Brooch.

The original is on vellum, my scroll is done on pergamenata with gouache. The lines were done in red ink, as was the decoration around the capital letters. I used Higgins ink for the black, and Winsor Newton for the red.

Writing the text was both fun and difficult. I wanted it to follow the flow of the original text, but figured out really quickly that I had more to say than the original text did. After consulting a few musicians, I came to the decision that even if the text didn't really fit with the music anymore the music was still playable and that was, to me, the important part. I was as faithful as I could in replicating the music, considering I reduced the scroll size from the original.

I usually try very hard to create a 1:1 scroll ratio. The original piece is 14" x 19". My finished scroll is 9" x 11". I chose to go smaller because a) this is not a Peerage scroll and b) I do think about what sort of wall space the recipient has. Yes, I would have loved to create a huge scroll but I think that we as scribes need to understand that framing is costly on odd size scrolls and that while for something like a Peerage scroll that's fine, for something so early in the promising career of an artist in the SCA, being able to find a nice mat and frame at the store without having to special order a custom cut mat and frame is important. Thus, smaller scroll.

This is also the first scroll where I used a table to map out where my calligraphy went. Because I decided to use the notes in red as part of the text I did actually need to follow a map when I went to write the pieces. Having two calligraphy nib handles actually worked really well here and I have decided that I really do prefer having a round handle, and so will be replacing one of my pens soon.

The Story of a Silver Wheel in the Persian Style

I was sent an assignment for an event I've never been to, in a region I've not visited before and it necessitated that I ship my artwork to the Crown. All harrowing thoughts, seriously.

So I reached out to the contact listed on the assignment and got more information about one Lady Brit. An more information than I expected! So I started my research on a Safavid Persian scroll. This was useful as it greatly narrowed down the source material. In the British Library I found my mark - a Persian manuscript of the Tales of Sindbad, done in an Indian style.

My Exemplars: IO Islamic 3214 f.1r and f.46v

f.46v

f.1r

The hand is Nasta'liq - it is defined by short ascenders, long descenders, and a good deal of room between the beginning and end of a letter. I'm not sure that I was faithful to the hand in my exemplar, but it's a better faux Arabic than I've done before.

The text was very fun for me - I created text using one of the stories of Sindbad as a guide. The text tells the tale of the Court at Adventus, and Empress Caoilfhionn and Emperor Brennan assembling scholars and poets and having a discussion of what makes a person helpful. Many speak up and mention in turn the deeds that, it turns out, have all been performed by Brit. The Order speaks that they want her included and the Crown agrees, and so bestows the Silver Wheel.

The layout I chose is a combination of these two pages. Neither struck me as the right layout on their own, and I wanted something simple for this scroll, but striking. And so I landed at the layout of the finished piece:

A combination of two sources from the same book, adding diagonal text to balance the top and punctuating the piece with two diagonals giving more weight to the signature boxes for The Crown.

The materials are gouache and pergamenta, I did not use shell gold or gold leaf on this piece. In the original, the center of the medallion appears to be gold leaf, while the line work in both the medallion and the text page appear to be something closer to a mustard yellow. I decided that gold would stand better against the color of the perg, and would balance the metallic silver of the award itself, and so I used Holbein Rich Gold. I increased the proportion of the blue surround to give the medallion weight that wasn't just the gold in the center, and also to follow the wider center medallions sometimes seen in other Persian works.

The mockup for this layout was done in Photoshop. 

I'll confess - this is the first assignment I used the magic line tool on... and I love it. 


I've used a line tool to mark lines for my calligraphy before, but after Panteria I learned of the line tool for just making paint lines. I am extremely happy with how precise the lines are, and I see where my hand wavered and I released more paint than I wanted to - imperfections that I'm sure some can see but that I am ok with. 


The recipient: I was told that Brit prefers Persian, sometimes 
Landsknecht, sometimes Viking, and sometimes 13th century English. I took a chance that she prefered Persian and went that route. I'm glad I did. :) 

A Brooch...

I was awarded the Silver Brooch at East Kingdom 50 Year. I am grateful to their Majesties for including me in the Order of the Silver Brooch. I know I swore when I went up there. I know I was completely surprised - my dear Lord Guinemer did a wonderful job of keeping me in the dark the whole time.

I've been working on my arts lately, pushing myself to do better research and produce more correct documents. I know what I'm striving for now - deep authenticity in my work. A little winter bird asked me what I wanted out of my path. I almost choked when she asked me, partly because I knew at that time what milestone was coming soon on her path and partly because no one had actually asked me that before. I've thought long and hard about the question Mistress Christiana asked me that day and I have an answer now.

I want to produce works that are complete. What I mean is that I want to create something that when anyone views it gets a complete and total sense of the time period the work is from. I want to include the specific little details that make a piece period - glossing, marginalia, short hand, etc. I want a piece that I create to look as full and alive as the exemplars. I also want to create pieces that are original, that look as though they're another page of the book, not exactly *that* page of the book. Eventually, I want to help other people do that too. I want to be able to do a thing so completely that I can teach it. After all, what good is knowledge if you don't pass it on?

That's the goal of my path. There are many people I want to learn from to achieve this. I don't know if I'll ever wear the belt of one specific person, or a belt at all for that matter, and that's ok too. This doesn't worry me, or bother me. I want the knowledge and skill more than anything else.

So now comes the fun part of achieving my goal. It's all art, and that's the best part. Research is art. Painting and calligraphy is art. I feel like I took a good step with the Deed scroll. I also feel like the Deed scroll fell short in some really important areas. You'll have to read my documentation to get that info though, it's too long for a blog post.

(I feel like there's a Muppet's song playing in the background now... 😄)

So this is me, on my way. 😊

Memento Mori - A 14th Century Deed Scroll

This past year I was asked once again to create the scroll for the Deed at GNEW. For those that aren't familiar with the Deed, more information can be found here.

The theme was Memento Mori, and it was being held on Friday, July 13th. (no, the exact date was not known when the theme was picked. really. we just got lucky ;) ) The Challenges were well chosen:

Le Danse Macabre - 1v1
Love Send Me To My Fate - Ladies Challenge
The Lady in Deaths Tower - All v All
Ransom Battle - Teams v Teams

In past years I had chosen to depict all the scenarios on the scroll, but this year I found a carpet page that grabbed me, and so I chose to do only Le Danse Macabre and The Lady in Death's Tower.  The mind behind all this, Lord Alexander Clarke, has long run this tournament with little recognition. The fighters and ladies decided this was the year for a change.

We conspired, as you do, to name him the champion of the Deed. It made my life easier, in a way, because I could complete the whole thing before the Deed and didn't need to make time allowances to get his name and arms added after the fact. As it was, I still ended up finishing this on site - but it was done before the Deed started! :D

My homework for this was relatively straightforward - I worked with Lord Alejandro on the words, and sought out the source materials courtesy of the British Library. For this, I chose one book but not facing pages from Add MS 18850

f. 14r

The carpet page depicts scenes of Angels and sinners. I loved the distance and castle in the foreground. A general layout and use of the structures is about where my use of this ended. 

• I chose to change the fence in the background into the rolling hills so often spoken of in songs of burial grounds - rolling hills and trees under which to be laid to rest. 
• The golden tower center of the back I changed into Death's Tower - removing the crosses and the beauty of the ceiling painting, removing the altar, and inserting a swooning woman into the center. Death plays a harp, and wears a crimson and black hood and cloak - Death dances while the fighters advance.
• The castle became a Gallery for the Ladies to look on as one fighter wins the fight, landing a heavy blow to the other fighter who as lost the Danse Macabre. 
• One lady stands in the doorway, looking on to see her fighter return from the trials, a black river running past her door.  

I am happy with how the carpet page came out - it's simpler than the source by far, and I worried that the look would be lost in removing so many elements, but in thinking about the scroll, the fighters are the focus so I decided they would be the focus here. 

f. 38r

The text page is classic in the intricate vine work so usual of this style. The changes I made here were completely because of the necessity for multiple signatures as well as the text. Because of this I had to greatly reduce the vine work, and eliminate the medallion on the right side of the page. Some small repositioning of the lower medallion and pushing the right side bar further to the right to accommodate more lines, and I achieved a look that was mostly correct, and room for all the required elements. 

The text was a collaboration between Lord Alejandro and myself, and written specifically for Lord Alexander. 

I have a huge thank you to note here - to Master Robert Whitcomb of Brandywine. His calligraphy instruction helped me immensely, not only in his coming to teach the Calligraphers Guild in Carolingia before KWHSS, but at KWHSS too. 

The scroll text: 

The sun moving low over the mountains casts its light upon our band of brothers resplendent in our finest franchise gathered on the verdant fields of Malagentia. 

With clash of sword Love sent us to our Fate, with crash of mace we found the Lady in Deaths Tower. This day we have each our own danse macabre, prowess and wisdom to faithfully display before the gallery. There is one among us who gives all and inspires all, one whose sword found its mark this day.

He is known by the shield he carries in azure and or ,a shield that bears his armor from the battlefield to rest. The Ladies did confer and thus name the most Noble and Honorable Squire Lord Alexander Clarke the anointed champion. Thus the shield of chivalry shall forever remain with him, a memento mori.

As with anything, I can see the flaws but I won't go into those here. There are elements that I will improve on in the future, and I feel that guidance I received from Mistress Nataliia on whitework from my Dragon piece came into play here. 

I can see the progress in this piece from my last Deed scroll, and that makes me happy too. I am honored that I was asked to paint this again. 

Stave Door for a Silver Wheel

Norse personas are fun to paint for but they prove challenging sometimes. I've yet to get a blacksmith to paint for, but a Silver Wheel means you do a lot of things and work very hard - so I used my blacksmith image for this one.

Hylestad stave church, 12th century Museum of Cultural History, Oslo University

The original is on a door in Norway, a stave church depicting imagery from a Norse saga. 

I love this image, the dedication on the mens faces, the action and movement in the body language and equipment - it's a fantastic carving and one I've wanted to use for a long while. 

8.5 x 11, art area will fit inside an 8x10 mat - gouache and ink on perg

I decided that the award would go in the center, between their faces but nearly out of both of their gazes.  

The text is mine, written in a faux runic hand and done in red Windsor Newton ink and a Mitchell nib. I practiced a few times and studied rune stones to determine how the hand should go. What I found is that the top and bottom of each letter touch the top and bottom line, giving you that even hand. There is almost no extra spacing between words, and the breaks between lines are made either with a colon : or with a small x, neither of which touch the top or bottom lines. 

I decided that the small x would be my line break in this piece and I think it worked very well - as on rune stones, the breaks are only just visible and the text really flows. 

The artwork was done entirely with gouache, in a red ochre/ burnt sienna color. I did not try to color match the original piece - the wood has changed color significantly since the original carving and I wanted the ink and paint to be similar in shade, but not exact. The overall look is exactly what I wanted it to be - the text flows behind the carving and is all readable although it doesn't look it.

I debated making the Wheel the same color, but I decided against it - this award is marked by its color, and I felt the silver wouldn't be out of place. I chose wisely, and it stands out just enough. 

The recipient, after Court, told me he recognized the source as soon as he saw the scroll and that made me happier than anything in the world. It's great when a thing works out! :D 

Vellum Dragon

I started on this out of two desires - one, to paint for myself and two, to use some of the real vellum that's in my stash.

The Original, with ruler for scale

This piece is what came of those thoughts: taken from Yates Thompson MS 13, f.186.v is a page containing a really interesting dragon. It's a sort of "monster at the end of this book" as this book of hours is an excellent example of descriptive marginalia. There are monsters and grotesques throughout the book - this dragon features in a few panels, being fought or slaying people and animals, but here is shown in it's full body and "glory" with wings open and jaw agape.

The style here is French, 14th century, featuring the blues, reds, and pinks we recognize from the century. In this piece, the gold around the lettering is possibly shell gold. The gold that used to be in the bar at the bottom was likely leaf. I will be using leaf for my piece, although I've never used gold leaf on vellum before. It's part of the challenge I set myself with this piece.

My piece is done on a scrap of vellum I purchased at Guild Mirandola. It is nearly 1:1 with the original, and so no modifications for scale were made between the two. I used a light box to get a rough sketch on the vellum, and then finished the drawing by eye. I have decided that I need a finer lead pencil - I'm using a .07 lead and it's too thick.

Day 1: Pencil and Ink

Day 1: penciled

Day 1:inked

My hand is far heavier for the inking than the original artists was. I'm wondering if some of that will be "taken care of" through the process of painting - just adding the gold has already diminished some of the black ink. I'm using a very fine point nib but I'm thinking perhaps the ink was thinner than the Higgins Eternal I used to line this.

I've been speaking with other calligraphers about ink, and came to find out that I was happier with Higgins Eternal when I'd left it out and open for a day or two. I decant a small amount into a wider mouth, more shallow container for my "working ink" and I have a tendency to forget to close it. Turns out that's about the same consistency as Pelikan ink straight from the container. I could be wrong though, and the lines they laid were as dark and stark as mine. I'll wait to make a decision till the end of the project.

Day 2: Gilding and Base layer Paint

Day 2: gilded

Day 2: painting, base layers

The gold here is two different kinds: The bar beneath the dragon is leaf applied with minatum cut 1:1 with water. It's my first ever attempt in using gold leaf on vellum, and I don't think it's too bad all told. I still have trouble getting the edges crisp. I think this is because I'm not doing an even application of minatum. The other gold areas are gold gouache to simulate shell gold. I'm currently out of shell gold, but have enough gold leaf bits that I'm ready to make my own. I'll be doing that later this summer and will do a post on that as well.

Color!
I have, in the past, done scrolls in a mid 14th century style and so I have those colors mixed already. I tend to work from cake, that is, I work from gouache that has dried. I rehydrate it, mix with a small palette knife to the desired consistency, and then paint. I get to a point of "like heavy cream" and start painting there. It flows better and dries evenly so you don't see the brush strokes. My gouache is from Winsor Newton and Holbein.

At this point I had to remove the upper right hand tape - the goal is to make it look like it was cut out of the book, and so my painting and calligraphy will go right to the edge of the page. When I display this it will be on a piece of acid free mat board in a frame without glass and using clear photo corners to hold it in place. I will also employ a clear piece of acid free film in a small stripe across the center of the piece as it bows quite fantastically.

One thing I'm noticing as I work on this is something that I think a lot of scribes notice - our pieces look very new compared to the extant pieces. I'm not sure there's a way to get around that easily, because frankly our pieces are new. The colors are fresh and bright and exciting - the gold is shimmery and has no touch of age. We scribes love our extant books, the weathered pages and colors peeking out from behind decades of dust and use and god knows what on them. By contrast our pages don't always look "right" to our eyes. (or at least, to my eyes).

I'm giving the paint a full day to dry between applications because I'm working on vellum and I'm not 100% on how long I should let each set. It's possible I don't really need to wait this long between sections - I'm also aware that I have physical limitations and can only work for so long before my wrist hurts, so in an effort to not overdo it and re-injure myself, I'm taking my time.

Day 3: Whitework

I started on my whitework, first testing out my paint on a scrap piece of perg to see what the consistency was like. I’m getting better at my wetting down from cake. I’m still hesitant when I’m doing my whitework, and I think that shows here.


I was fairly happy with my whitework, but was hoping that I’d get good feedback at Coronation. I did! Nataliia gave me some excellent advice and I think my work here improved. I’ll be better able to apply her notes on my next piece.

Day 4: The Dragon

The dragon is finally done. It was hard color matching the skin tone, and my coloring turned out a little more yellow than the original. I am no unhappy about this, I think it works. The linework I’ve been working on has really paid off here, and the scaling and markings on the wings are very close to the original.

Project Conclusion

I have thoughts on what I'll do next time:

• For this piece I really did just jump in on the illumination. I think my next piece needs to have the calligraphy too.

• After showing this to more scribes, I have noticed details that I overlooked the first time, such as the patterning in the smaller areas. I didn’t do a great job recreating those, but I don’t think that changed the look of the piece.
  
• My goldwork suffered here for lack of clean materials. I am ordering more gold leaf and after the class at Quintavia Scribal I am much more confident in the success of my next piece.
  
• I'd like to work from period pigments next time. I have them, but they remain unused right now. I have some more research to do before I start using them, and to be fair I won't be using them on many scroll assignments (only for those people I know will understand how to care for a scroll like that) so I feel I can take my time here and really learn to use them properly.

When a text layout isn't straightforward

I've been pushing myself lately, not because I was told to but because I felt it was time. So with this AoA for a Middle Eastern persona I decided to get into the two sized texts that the Ottomans loved so much.

And I found an excellent piece for it. This is a page from the Qur'an, written in both Arabic and Persian. It is a warning page, the text underneath being the Persian and the source of the warning, saying ˓Alī Ibn Abī ṭālib said, Woe unto you, O Qatāda, if you interpret the Qur˒an by yourself.
The piece can be found here, and the original leaf is housed at the Morgan Library. Other leaves reside elsewhere - the book is not whole.


I took this piece and decided that it would be excellent to highlight the reasons for the AoA, the Royals, the Recipient, and the event, and leave all the other words to be the subscript. The layout for this took much longer than other pieces I've done, including the hourglass shaped text for the Kells AoA I did last year.

What I loved most was how the text ran along the outside, in the border, and continued into the center. I omitted the medallion in the center because I had more text to place than they did. I saved the medallion on the left side for the Arms, and left room at the bottom between the border and the bottom row of text for signatures. I also left room between the rows for the blazon once his Arms are passed.

This was another assignment where I received little information about the recipient. Even reaching out revealed little more than what I already knew. Middle Eastern is a wide range, and from a scribal standpoint does not narrow it down. So, I did what I could with what I had and moved forward on creating the scroll.

I roughly sketched the vines a few times before closer inspection revealed that they're circles. All the vines are, at their base, circles around the red text. That made things easier, and I think I achieved a much better recreation. The piece is done on pergemenata, and when I ordered it I ordered white instead of natural so visually my piece is different from the original. Because of this, I changed the color of the outside tracks on the knot work. In the original, those are a beige very close to the parchment color, but slightly darker which could be either a faded gold or a raw sienna/ochre color. I tested both on a scrap piece and they did not look cohesive with the piece. I chose instead to do the those tracks in rich gold gouache like the vine work. I am very happy with the final piece, and I feel it has the cohesion of the original. The calligraphy was done with Winsor Newton Red ink, Higgins Eternal black ink and Mitchell nibs. All words by me.

Visually I am happy with the scroll. If I were to do this again, I would likely move to a larger page size to accommodate so much text. However, staying with this page size is more in line with the original, and I'm happy with that. On a practical note, it's also easier to find an affordable frame with an 8x10 mat opening than it is larger sizes.

Tsar Ivan, presenting it in Court at Mudthaw, photo courtesy of Dayna Tarabar

Comedy/Tragedy in a Borre style

I was sent an assignment, and I haven't gotten one yet that I've turned down. I knew I would be able to accept this, and it only got better when I read who it was for- someone I know who is deeply deserving of the honor of the Order of Troubadour.

I also knew that for this I needed the absolute right words, so I went to Nicol mac Donnchaidh, because he has the best way with words and because he knows the recipient. He was overjoyed to get the assignment and thus the scroll was born.

With Viking personas it gets tricky to get the right look, the right feel. In our case we got lucky - Cedar has a Wiki page. They laid out exactly where and when they're from, what they do and how. It made our job easier to a point. That point being that most of what still exists from their time period is metalwork.

So how do you take a medallion in the Borre style and make it a painted page? Well, you look at other works, find your period color palette, and then start sketching. This is an award for a Skald, a bard, an artist. Cedar has immense talent. I needed this scroll to pay honor to that.

I did some searching and found a medallion that jumped out at me. This is Borre style, found at Upland, Sweden. The link goes to the item catalog entry.

To me, this little face was smiling. That, in concert with the fact that this is a bardic award, lent me to think that perhaps what I needed was a Borre style Comedy/Tragedy mask medallion.

Then was the drawing, making sure each part fit together and reworking the knot in the center to be a four pointed knot instead of a triskele. It meant redrawing the face to include a mouth, and then redrawing it to both smile and frown.

What stumped me the most was how to do the text. I struggled a lot with this, and ultimately enlisted three people to help sort this out - Nicol, Christiana, and Alayne. Ultimately I followed their suggestion to do the text in red around the outside like dots. I think I got close, but in retrospect I should have gone down a nib side to really get closer to the red dots so often seen in the Kells and Lindisfarne manuscripts. As it is I'm happy because the calligraphy is fairly easy to read, even if you do have to turn the scroll 360 degrees (twice) to read it all. This was also my first time doing circular text - that was interesting. I need more work on getting that style of text layout cleaner, but I am happy with the results.


The scroll is on pergamenata with gouache and Winsor Newton red ink by a Mitchell nib. Final size of the scroll is 9x11 on an 11x14 page.

Cedar, receiving their scroll in Court at Mudthaw, photo courtesy of Dayna Tarabar:

Adding Arms and Blazon

For Barleycorn/ Ostgard Investiture I had an AoA assignment which I delivered and got to see go out in Court. It was awesome, and I was so glad she enjoyed it. 

http://aaradyn-ghyoot.blogspot.com/2017/10/an-aoa-for-barleycorn.html

So the recipient, Cailleach, sought me out and had me add her Arms and Blazon to the scroll. I've never been asked to do this before! She sent me an amazing photo of the scroll framed and hanging on the wall. I won't lie (or hold back) - I cried a little. To know that my work was so treasured, I was truly touched. It's the wish of every scribe to know that their work is loved, and displayed for all to see. It was the kindest thing she could have done for me. 

Of course I said I'd finish the scroll and we arranged for me to pick up the piece at Dancing Fox and return it to her at Mudthaw. Sadly I cannot go to Mudthaw, but a courier will take it for me. (I love my couriers very, very much - every scribe does. They are wonderful people who do a great service for this Kingdom.) 

The piece came to me well packaged and opening it back up and seeing my work I noticed all the places that I have improved, and the places where I did better than I thought. It was a little scary to work on my own piece again, and wonderfully fulfilling too. I am thankful for this chance. 

The finished piece: 

I left myself possibly the SMALLEST shield to put the arms in! This is a lesson I will absolutely remember in the future and I will give a larger space for the arms. I also didn't leave enough room for the blazon to be added comfortably. Again, a lesson that I am taking to heart for the future. My sincerest apologies to any and all scribes who've had to add Arms and Blazon to an AoA I've done! 

I think my camera was tipped a little, because the text is much more straight than it appears here. Overall though, I am happy with the results and, more importantly, Cailleach is happy with the results. 

Urnes style AoA

Or, Aaradyn goes Minimalist

The SCA as a whole has a lot of Vikings. I think that's awesome, but it makes doing original scrolls tricky. See, the Vikings didn't illuminate the way other cultures did. This forces us scribes to think outside the box.

Or page. ;)

There is a Stave Church in Norway with the most amazing carved doorways. It's in the Urnes style, a very specific style of knotwork that shows up many places in Norse culture. I have a theory that the doorways were painted once, but since it's been around since forever the color is gone and the beauty of the weathered wood is all that remains. UNESCO - Stave Church doorway detail

It's still breathtakingly beautiful.

I received an assignment for a Viking AoA, and decided to use the church doorway detail linked above. There aren't an abundance of Norse period works to draw from, and it makes us stretch as a scribe to use artifacts instead of books as our inspiration.

In choosing something that is not already a vibrant color, as an artist you have a lot of options. However, to stay in period you need to know what your color palate is, and Norse works are no different. I decided to follow the color layout of the abundant runestones from the era, and chose simple red on a beige piece of pergamenata. I left off pieces of the work that would have lead off the page, and modified others to keep the design contained. Parts of this design do not exactly follow the usual course of knotwork from the 12th and 13th centuries. My knotwork techniques have improved since then.

The ink on this piece is Higgins, and is much closer to the consistency of period ink. I find it much easier to work with. I didn't yet have my Mitchell nibs, so this was done with a Speedball nib. This piece does, however, show the lines from my Ames guide, and I have Mistress Eleanor and Master Alexander to thank for my working knowledge of that excellent tool.

I have not yet done a Norse scroll using runes, and I am unlikely to anytime soon. I am not comfortable enough with writing in runes to attempt that yet. For the most part I do try to match the hand with the time period, but in the case of my Norse persona scrolls I tend to use Unical. I'm familiar with it, it's comfortable for me, and it is not glaringly wrong.

Goldwork for a Silver Wheel

Goldleaf is not my strong suit. I'm getting better, but yeah... it's definitely something I need to work on.  For this piece, the goal was even application and straight lines. I didn't quite achieve that, but I am happy with the piece nonetheless.

My other challenge with this piece was to use a faux Arabic hand for the calligraphy. I learned two things from working with this hand:
one, I need to work on my spacing considerably and
two, I need to relax my hand more when writing

That said, I had a lot of fun with this scroll, and I feel my white work was much better. Thanks again to Mistress Eva for her color matching lessons! I think my next lesson is to stop second guessing myself and trust my eyes.

This is a scroll for a Silver Wheel, referenced from an Iranian book of poetry to Muhammed.

French in the month of May

At Pennsic I was asked if I was interested in doing a page for the East Kingdom calendar 2018. Truth be told, I was overjoyed! I don't think I jumped up and down when Mistress Rhonwen asked me, but I might have...

I love the French style of artwork, and so listed it as one of the styles I'd prefer to paint. It was my assignment once they were announced, and with Rhonwen's help I found a wordsmith to translate the page into French. Many, many thanks to the research team that helped get the text sorted for me!

Then it was on to research! Tournaments are what brought me into the SCA, and being involved with the Deed at GNEW has solidified my love of the 14th century, so it seemed fitting that I chose a tourney scene. I chose a page from France, c 1330 - Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César, Perrin Remiet 

(Royal MS 20 D I / f6r).  The text came from Froissart's chronicles:

A il la nul gentilhomme qui pour l’amour de sa dame voulsist faire aucun fait d’armes? 

Se il en y a nulz, veéz me cy tout appareillié pour yssir hors armé de toutes pieces, monté a cheval jouster trois coups de glaive, ferir trois coups de hache et trois coups de dague.
Si en ait qui puet et tout pour sa dame. Or verra on entre vous Anglois se il y a nul amoureux.

"Is there no gentleman among you who would perform some feat of arms for the love of his lady? If there is, then here I am, ready to go forth fully armed and mounted to tilt with the lance three times, to land three blows of the battle axe, and three strokes of the dagger. So let there be someone who can undertake such a feat, and all for his lady. Now let us see amongst you Englishmen if there be any of you in love." 

It was excellent, and perfect for the scene. I am exceedingly happy with how this came together. Mistress Eleanor was kind enough to be my calligrapher for this, and her hand is (as always) exquisite. 

gouache on pergamenata

An AoA in the style of a Carpet Page

Every now and again I get an assignment for someone I actually know - these, honestly, are the best and the hardest assignments. Pressure! But the good kind ;)

When I received this assignment, I immediately reached out to get confirmation on some ideas I had from the one who wrote him in, and everything fell together wonderfully.

The finished scroll: inspired by the Book of Kells, containing wolves instead of cats as was the preference of the recipient.

Gouache on Perg
Calligraphy, Words, and Illumination by me.

The Book of Kells is available online, however, I pulled this image from a book I own. In the original Book, this is f 187v, The End of the Gospel According to Mark. I chose this specific page because of the text placement.

I replaced the Book that Mark was holding in the original with a shield for the recipient's Arms. The lion on the right was done partially in blue to allude to the East Kingdom's blue Tyger.

The recipient loves wolves, so the cats that originally appeared in the uprights on each side were replaced with a Celtic style wolf, modeled on a wolf that appears elsewhere in the Book of Kells.

I am, overall, very happy with how this turned out. I did trace the general design of this scroll from the original page. All detail work was done freehand. The colors were matched to the online images from the Book of Kells as the book I have is a poor quality for color matching. I used Higgins ink and a Mitchell nib, and I am never switching away from Mitchell now that I know how easy they are to use. The control was significantly easier.

When I was doing the layout for this scroll, the original has very few words in the center sections. It took a lot of trial and error to get everything to work out. I did intentionally lay out the text so that the word East is centered and the only word on the line.

This broke one of the "rules" that I've set for myself in the past, that the illumination should encapsulate all the text, including the signatures. I wanted to follow the original with the text size as much as possible, and using a scan of the page and a text editor I was able to reach the look that fit best. This couldn't include the signature lines, so I placed those below the finished piece.

A new year, a new role

At Crown last year I spoke with the East Kingdom Clerk Signet and after much agreement and some reassurance on both sides I took on the role of Central Region Deputy to the Clerk Signet.

I'm happy to have the chance to serve the Kingdom in a role I've served my Barony in for a while. I love helping people with all things scribal, and I hope that people feel comfortable coming to me with their questions. That said - if you have questions, please ask! aaradyn.ghyoot@gmail.com

Yours in Service,
Aaradyn