Monday, July 17, 2017

Silver Brooch - Gregor

This assignment turned into a crazy two part project.  The time frame for this to be completed was while I was elbow deep in painting for Fortune's Silver Crescent scroll.

This would have been a simple update if not for the story attached to it.

Original Scroll:
Award: Order of the Silver Brooch
Recipient: Gregor von Medehem
Calligraphy by me - hand is gothic
Illumination: Mergriet van Wijenhorst
Illumination add-ons (badge and illuminated capital) -by me
Words: Alys Mackyntoich

My gothic looks nice, actually.  May it live on in blessed memory.


This scroll was another piece of scroll karma where I picked art that connected with the recipient so much more so than I ever thought.  When I got the assignment, the recommendation didn't say a whole lot about the recipient and the recommender was different than the listed contact.  Being on a tight timeline, I used my time to practice the hand and do some additions to the art I had set aside for this.

Panteria comes and goes....this scroll was given out on Sunday and I had left Saturday night.  Per usual, I can't sleep in and go check the interwebs while drinking coffee.  So I get a message from Christiania (because she has a knack for knowing when I'm tuned in to respond to messages) with a tale of woe, tragedy, and every scribe's worst nightmare.  This incredibly nice gentle who received my scroll was cursed by a cruel twist of fate and what was described to me as a Rube-Goldburg-esque series of events that cause his guitar strap to break, the swing of the instrument to hit his beer, the beer to arc upward and over to the scroll, splash all over the calligraphy, and the guitar to be smashed upon the ground after in a final destruction and mayhem.

Somehow...someway...could I reproduce the scroll?

O_O'

Well....huh....I'd like to say at this juncture I looked at my event schedule, the timeline for finishing Fortune's scroll, the likelyhood I've have another assignment shortly given the reign schedule, and said sure but it likely won't be until after GNEW.

A few days before GNEW I had just finished the chibi scroll for Fortune and had an idea. I took the deceased's scrolls sister that I had earmarked for another project and went to work on it it.  My deadline would be tight and there was a chance I wouldn't finish.  Still, I jumped for it and forged ahead.

I finished the additional artwork to Mergriet's illumination and specifically hand drew a new snail on this one.  The illuminated capital got away from me and decided to be large, awesome, and super fussy with some white work. I ended added the leaves to make the artwork of two people blend just a little bit more and make the piece look polished.

Snail rides again!

At this point, it's my bed time.  I just finish the fussing with the illumination and I'm debating fighting with my gothic hand at 10pm.  Like an angel appearing in the night, Thyra casually made an offer to do the calligraphy for me so we could hand it off done in person rather than waiting until after Pennsic.  In return, I'd owe her some illumination for one of her upcoming projects.  This meant I could prep for the wedding I had to go to and pack for GNEW the next day.  Wooooo!

The scroll was completed and given to Aneleda and Christiana for hand off now with Thyra's lovely calligraphy and an unholy bargain of TBD illumination.  All in all, I'm happy with my art additions and the snail is adorable.


Oh, actually both scrolls were handed over so the tale of Martin Scroll-Killer (Gregor's guitar) could grow in infamy and legend.






2 comments:

  1. This was actually quite fun to read, I often wonder what happens to the blanks and scrolls when they leave the nest... bummer about the epic accident but hey, at least it was epic! ;)

    Mergriet

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A few local scribes snagged some of the blanks for short timeline assignments. Some of us were working on multiple assignments at once during the reign so we were extra busy. These two blanks were perfect and practically begged me to use them :) Absolutely lovely illumination!

      Delete