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.