Quilliam's Ducal Scroll - write-up
So back in mid-January at the Ramshaven baronial moot HRM Dagmar asked me if I would do Quilliam's ducal scroll. Garraed Galbraith would be providing the wording. Her stipulations were that it be Epic and something that even a mundane friend would find cool.
I tend to follow the maxims "nothing succeeds like excess" and "go big or go home", so I decided to do a two-page scroll on real parchment, each page 11x14. The first page would be a full-on carpet page and the text would go on the second page, with complementary art. Same approach as I used with Gunther`s Court Barony scroll last summer.
But what to use? I delved into my art books looking for appropriate inspiration and after a while I decided I wanted to do a frontal view of a helmet, embedded in a Lindisfarne-style border. Albrecht helped me by sourcing images of post-Roman helmets, all versions of spangenhelms. None of them really grabbed me except a 7th century Vendel helm.
Here's the original helm:
http://www.unstraight.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/2624/hjälm%20åhlin.jpg
I liked this helm because it was vertically balanced from forehead to chin. And like this one, post-Roman spangenhelms are often heavily decorated with repousse decorated plaques, so there was built-in scope.
The first problem was my parchment. I hadn't unrolled it since I received it from Pennsic via HE Magistra Nicolaa. So I rolled it the opposite way and taped it shut and left it for a few days. Then I marked off my pages and cut them out with scissors. The pages were still pretty warped, and I ended up having to tape them onto foamcore with green painter's tape so they wouldn't buckle while I measured, drew and painted. That worked out pretty well and I recommend it.
After measuring I found I could easily size up the helm to my parchment just by doubling the measurements. I embedded it in a square frame with 1" borders and began developing the motifs.
The Lindisfarne Gospels unify motifs from Pictish, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art. Since I was using a Lindisfarne-style carpet page format, I felt at liberty to unify Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Celtic motifs with Lindisfarne elements.
I started with garnet cloisonne chains on the chin and jewelled plaques from the Ardagh Chalice in the corners and on the cheek pieces.
I added Celtic triskeles in the inset corners.
I used decoration from the Mammen axe on the forehead pieces of the helm, in mirror image.
And I adapted knotwork and zoomorph birds from the Lindisfarne Gospels for the border elements.
As the nasals on these helmets are often decorated, I decided to use Quilliam's totem animal - the moose - and put two moose heads with full racks facing each other down the long axis of the nasal.
These choices took weeks to solidify. The chains, corner decoration and triskeles were easy, as was the knotwork, but the Mammen and bird decisions came much later, when the carpet page was half painted.
Deciding on the colour scheme also took time. I knew certain things had to be gold, and there had to be areas of red. But I started with black. The void within the helmet - that could only be filled by Majesty - I painted black. It looked a little skull-like but I went with it. I had built layers of borders within borders - characteristic of Lindisfarne carpet pages - and I decided to separate the helm within its initial border with a second border of black.
I then futzed with the garnet chains and tiny corner borders, and painted a lot of gold. And then I left it for a while. I didn't want it just red and gold and black plus natural parchment. I needed a fifth colour. I didn't like the idea of any shade of blue, and a regular green would be too Christmas-y. And the gold meant that yellow wouldn't work either.
Strangely enough, while in Toronto for March break I picked up a book on Japanese art, and came across a piece of cerulean green pottery, juxtaposed against tomato red and black. I also remembered a golden-green brocade fabric I own. So I gently blended ultramarine blue with yellow and obtained a light golden green that looked almost fluorescent against the black, and was very happy.
I drew the Mammen-style decoration on the forehead pieces. In its unpainted state it looked curiously Steampunk, all gears and ratchets and pins. Dagmar had hinted she would like the scroll to have some real gold. I thought the eyebrows should be gold. Spangenhelms often display a variety of metals, and the eyebrows often receive special treatment. I have a mostly full book of loose leaf 18k lemon gold. I put down a thick layer of commercial liquid gesso mixed with honey and let it mostly dry. Then I laid down some loose gold, badly, and tried to burnish it, prematurely, and it turned to crap. It looked godawful. I let the carpet page sit on the mantlepiece for weeks while I thought about it.
Meanwhile I took a vacation day to take care of some personal business, and Albrecht and I found ourselves in downtown Guelph at Wyndham Arts. I left the store with a book of 23k transfer gold, a jar of commercial size and some lovely 20/0 artificial brushes.
Time was marching on. Soon it was the end of March, and I had to finish the Boke of Memories for TE Percival and Christiana of Septentria. I calligraphed the memories like mad and found time to pencil sketch the decorations for the pages, while my gaze kept stealing back to the mutely waiting helm surrounded by half-filled borders and curving birds.
In addition, we were embroiled in the Ramshaven baronial election and preparing to run Cloth of Gold. My schedule was more than full. I had to deliver the Boke of Memories at Septentrian Investiture, and ended up staying with Larisa in Orono so I would have the time to finish the illuminations. I also had to sing a song I had written for Percival and Christiana. I had been practising the song during my solitary commute for months. I suffer from stage fright and I drove myself to perform. Very few people knew the full extent of the burdens I had placed upon myself.
I clung to the hope that I would be able to complete Quilliam's scrolls in that last week before Coronation.
Meanwhile Garraed had delivered the wording, an acrostic in anglo-saxon metre that spelled Quilliam Dagmar II. My plan was to use my Lindisfarne insular hand, and with all the practice I'd had on the Boke of Memories, the hand was starting to genuinely rock.
So. Cloth of Gold was a success. Investiture was done. The Boke was finished. The song was sung. The election was over. Albrecht and I had made our point. And I could finally concentrate on the last big SCA job currently on my plate.
I sanded off the ruined loose leaf gold, laid down some commercial size and then applied the transfer gold to the eyebrows, forehead stud and the centres of the four triskeles. And waited overnight before attempting to remove the paper and burnish the gold. The eyebrows turned out acceptably. I never did find time to do a second layer that would have made the gold even brighter.
I booked the final Friday as vacation, partly to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary, and partly so I could have a few more solid hours to finish the scrolls. I spent the morning completing the remaining pencil work before going out for lunch and groceries. While in Orono the previous Friday night I had mixed up a patch of quinacridone red and a flat matte red that yielded a deep raspberry red, and I still had lots of it, so I refreshed it with water and began to paint. As I went along I made up extra golden green, and squeezed out more Winsor & Newton gold gouache, and painted and painted.
My son came home from school. I did the calligraphy. My hand equates to roughly 20pt font, but I didn't have time to try it out on the computer to check my spacing, so I did it by eye. It looks OK. The dip pen was a little rough on the hair side of the parchment (I prefer it to the greasy flesh side).
Originally I had hoped to do Quilliam's Achievement of Arms on the second page, but there wasn't enough room and achievements of arms are just not contemporaneous with insular illumination so I decided not to worry about it. Instead I built out a border along the top of the second page and included a large double-bordered roundel to receive the kingdom seal. The red on the parchment almost looks like brushed suede.
It's not skewed, the parchment was rolling up. All the lines are true.
Round about midnight I finished my touch-ups and took my pictures. I finally peeled off all the tape holding the scrolls onto the foam core and laid them side by side.
I am really happy with the unified appearance of the colour scheme. The scrolls really look balanced, dignified yet rich and vibrant. This is the most important scribal commission I have ever received, and I believe I have fulfilled it.
I thank Duchess Dagmar for having the faith in me to give me this project (mad love!), and I am so happy that Duke Quilliam was so obviously delighted with the end result.
There's over one hundred hours in these scrolls.