Using the Book of Kells, I created a page where, for once, the knotwork didn't make up the first letter of the first word. These aren't usual, and I liked how simple the knotwork was here.
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| gouache on perg |
Cassel-Irra is the location where Saint Bron lived and served in Ireland. It is near what is now called Cashel, and was a friary near the Rock of Cashel.
June 8th is the feast day of Saint Bron.
As my focus is toward creating period manuscripts, my challenge here was to add in the blazon and the visual depiction of the arms without adding anything that would detract from the period nature of the page. So, I put the arms into the O of "Or", the last word in his blazon. It is tiny, I admit, but to me the look of the page is better for not stuffing in a large shield with arms on them where one would not have been.
This is for a herald, and so where I usually have to leave room, this time I had a blazon to enter. I have to say it was considerably easier to just write everything together.
The exemplar has the crowned R in the lower left corner, and part of my decision to chose this page was to use that specific letter. I am very happy with how this turned out.
Things I left off: the dots.
I completed this scroll in basically 24 hours, including research, wordsmithing, and practice calligraphy. My courier was arriving as I finished the header, and given timing and the state of my hand I did not have the control to do the dots. The piece feels somewhat incomplete without them, but I still like the overall look of the piece.
