Backlog scroll
To help give my blog some structure, I thought I would start posting about scrolls as I do them. It might be interested to you, my reader. And it might be helpful for me to look back and see what I have done and maybe WHY I did it that way.
So, I am finishing up on a backlog scroll assignment I recieved, It is an AOA-Level service award called the Order of the Opal. The recipient has previously recieved an AOA, so I do not have to include her device. Her name has been registered in the SCA College of Arms.
I wanted to work more with the shading technique that I recently learned and used for the MS at the Scriptorium event.
I have wanted to try my hand at something like the School of Winchester - Anglo Saxon type illumination that used very ornate leaf and folliage sort of design. It can ber very ornate and a bit over the top. Instead of using a more typical design, I used a simpler scroll, vine and leaf design that was carved in stone and painted in the Winchester way with shading and a little white work. I did the carved design because I like it and it was a bit easier to figure out how to draw and how to paint. True school of Winchester seems to use ornate acanthus leaves - almost to the point of abstraction. So, this is why it is "Creative Anachronism"...I can mix it up a little.
I traced the desing from one of the wonderful Dover Publisher books, Early Medieval Designs from Britain for Artists and Craftspeople by Eva Wilson.
I used Pergamenta paper, Windsor and Newton Calligraphy Ink, with a size 6 nib, and I used Windsor and Newton Gouache in Spectrum Red, Permanent Green Deep, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine, and another red that I can't find the tube at the moment... I used Holbein Gouache in Aqua Blue and Schmincke Gold pearl.
For calligraphy, I did it in Insular Miniscule and I used the Anglo Saxon letters þ= "th" (thorn), ð = "th" (eth),
= "w" (wynn). I also used the Insular symbol for "and" which sort of looks like a small "7"
I think the shading worked well. I can try something a bit more challenging next time, maybe even a true school of Winchester design.
I need to figure a way to burnish the gold pearl somehow. I have an agate, but it didn't really work well on my sample piece.
What I really need to do is look at the pictures again in a month or so and then update my thoughts. Right now, I mostly see my mistakes and problems and I cannot really critique it other than to say "eh"...
I posted pictures of this scroll on my Flickr account, if readers want to take a look. I took pictures through-out the process. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7393642@N04/sets/72157649163559689/
UPDATE: UGH, that was a bit of a mistake...I didn't notice til I started erasing the pencil makes. I started the calligraphy up a little high - for some reason I had the paper marked wonky for where to start the calligraphy.
Looks crappy, in my opinion! Shit shit shit!
It is only the first line that it is too high. HOW in the hell did I manage that?
I do my calligraphy with paper covering the illumination so I don't mark it by accident.
Oh damn! Hopefully it won't look too crappy. (Headthunk!)
So, I am finishing up on a backlog scroll assignment I recieved, It is an AOA-Level service award called the Order of the Opal. The recipient has previously recieved an AOA, so I do not have to include her device. Her name has been registered in the SCA College of Arms.
I wanted to work more with the shading technique that I recently learned and used for the MS at the Scriptorium event.
I have wanted to try my hand at something like the School of Winchester - Anglo Saxon type illumination that used very ornate leaf and folliage sort of design. It can ber very ornate and a bit over the top. Instead of using a more typical design, I used a simpler scroll, vine and leaf design that was carved in stone and painted in the Winchester way with shading and a little white work. I did the carved design because I like it and it was a bit easier to figure out how to draw and how to paint. True school of Winchester seems to use ornate acanthus leaves - almost to the point of abstraction. So, this is why it is "Creative Anachronism"...I can mix it up a little.
I traced the desing from one of the wonderful Dover Publisher books, Early Medieval Designs from Britain for Artists and Craftspeople by Eva Wilson.
I used Pergamenta paper, Windsor and Newton Calligraphy Ink, with a size 6 nib, and I used Windsor and Newton Gouache in Spectrum Red, Permanent Green Deep, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine, and another red that I can't find the tube at the moment... I used Holbein Gouache in Aqua Blue and Schmincke Gold pearl.
For calligraphy, I did it in Insular Miniscule and I used the Anglo Saxon letters þ= "th" (thorn), ð = "th" (eth),
= "w" (wynn). I also used the Insular symbol for "and" which sort of looks like a small "7"
I think the shading worked well. I can try something a bit more challenging next time, maybe even a true school of Winchester design.
I need to figure a way to burnish the gold pearl somehow. I have an agate, but it didn't really work well on my sample piece.
What I really need to do is look at the pictures again in a month or so and then update my thoughts. Right now, I mostly see my mistakes and problems and I cannot really critique it other than to say "eh"...
I posted pictures of this scroll on my Flickr account, if readers want to take a look. I took pictures through-out the process. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7393642@N04/sets/72157649163559689/
UPDATE: UGH, that was a bit of a mistake...I didn't notice til I started erasing the pencil makes. I started the calligraphy up a little high - for some reason I had the paper marked wonky for where to start the calligraphy.
Looks crappy, in my opinion! Shit shit shit!
It is only the first line that it is too high. HOW in the hell did I manage that?
I do my calligraphy with paper covering the illumination so I don't mark it by accident.
Oh damn! Hopefully it won't look too crappy. (Headthunk!)