Pennsic commission - Gift Scroll for Count Cellach

This project was a favor done at Pennsic this year.  Lady Fortune put out a call for scribal help for a friend with the promise of a suitable bribe.  Because I am a glutton for punishment, I thought this was a fantastic idea with the atrociously bad heat.  My only demand was I was provided words.

I met a very nice squire who told me of a gift he was giving to Count Cellach.  I'm a sucker for a great story and well...how could I say no to someone so nice and sincere?  No bribe needed. :)

This took about 1-1.5 hours done in a single sitting.  There are a few flaws in here, the most noticeable one is where I sweat on the page.  It was after all, over 104 degrees with the heat index,  and I was sticking to everything.

I even did capital letters!  Go me!  (I did suffer from a bit of shaky hand at the end, but it got done and he loved it)

Scriptorium Backlog Project

The idea for a full on Scriptorium is entirely Thyra's idea.  The goal was to get a bunch of scribes together and work on certain techniques all at once for the same or similar projects.  Getting a small test group together was pretty easy and my Laurel came to the rescue with ideas and guidance.  And with that Thyra, Marieta, and myself dove into the madness!

Eva contacted our incredibly patient and benevolent Scibal Backlog Deputy for three AoAs (people from different regions too) so we could have a real assignment with a real deadline.  When it's supposed to go to someone, rather than be an entirely practice piece, I think we as a whole all try to finish it and get it done too.

Eva chose a page from The Hours of Catherine of Cleves.  This isn't the page we worked on, but it's a neat overview of who Catherine was and links to some great miniatures in the book. http://www.themorgan.org/collection/Hours-of-Catherine-of-Cleves

For this project we learned a new hand (gothic) which, let me tell you, was HARD.  Meeting once a month, it took a tremendous amount of time before any of us were ready to put ink to parchment.  At some point Eva said "enough practice, do calligraphy for real!" and well...we did calligraphy for real.

This was also my first goldwork project.  We used leaf gold which as a wise woman told me "Sticks to everything!  To you, to the paper, to the cat, everything!"  This was the part of the project I enjoyed the most.  Not because I stuck gold leaf to a cat, but because holy crap it's awesome and makes scrolls pop!

Long story short, we started this project on Aug 25, 2015 (date of email from Backlog Deputy).  It took us just under a year to finish it.  We learned and did:

- proportioning of scroll layout area (which I suck at)
- new calligraphy hand (gothic)
- wordsmithing (I cheated since my assignment had words) and script area planning
- free hand drawing of acanthus leaves
- gilding
- capital letters (calligraphy and illuminated)
- white work and shading

Check this bad boy out!  AoA for Tristan Fischer of Olachlacha.  Words by Theodora Brynnissa, called Treannah (with some editing from me for style and to fit the space).  This is from AS 47 for the reign of Gregor and Kiena.

It's done!

Different angle so you can see the shiny!

And the obligatory group photo to prove that we are winners and can finish a backlog while still being active scribes and plan 3-4 vigils during that time period.


Huge thank you to Antonio Patrasso the incredibly patient Backlog Deputy and to my Laurel Eva Woderose the patient teacher.  Special thanks to Oberyn the Cat for sitting in scribal boxes and almost getting gold leaf on himself.

We then had ice cream with sprinkles because sprinkles are for winners!

Vigil Planning for Matthias - Part 4

On this post, I'll be focusing on the vigil book.  This was a tag team effort with the ever talented Anastasia our embroidery ninja, Thyra who did the calligraphy on the book, and myself.

If you haven't checked out Anastasia's blog entry on the book, it can be found here.

It was requested by Duke Edward (Matthias's knight) that the knightly lineage of his line be included in the vigil book.  Whomever did Edward's book, did a lovely job of illuminating and calligraphing the names and arms of the lineage (who were all Eastern Kings as well) and created a daunting piece of work to live up to.

With that looming, I began to sketch and layout the design...

First thing on this was Gryffith had a second reign.  That was one of the first things that would need to be updated in the new lineage layout. Secondly, Edward's arms would be added and the greyhound would need to be drawn with a ducal crown as a collar.

I do like that all of the animals are wearing their coronets (Gryff's coronet is like a super hat over both stags) and it was suggested that the unicorn on Matthias's arms could be drawn with a baronial coronet to match.  I decided against this from an aesthetic point of view , as well as I hadn't seen this done on other devices or if it was done it's not wide spread and I wanted to put the focus on the knightly chain and mantling of arms.  This was actually the first page I did, but the second in terms of location in the book. 

The first page was going to be more detailed since I was modeling it after Edward.  In his book, his arms were presented with a helm and mantling all encircled by a god knightly chain.  Take a cue from this, I set Matthias's up in a similar fashion.  I sketched out the general look (minus the device) and decided to change the helm from a front facing helm to a side facing one.  I would like to fool myself into thinking this was purely aesthetics, but I have a hard time with symmetry for audience facing pieces and will endlessly fiddle with it to look right (and I already was fiddling enough with the acanthus leaves).  I didn't have that kind of time and I really do like the profile styled helm.  I also decided to do the knightly chain as a necklace instead of encircling the entire device.  Side note, I had to repaint the chain.  I started doing it in silver because it looked better and then confirmed it needed to be gold.  Ah well. The progress pic below doesn't really show the screw up.

Looking pretty evil as is fitting for "the Evil Squire".

The rest was all unicorns and rainbows...I mean...comets.  Funny thing about comets.  Heraldic comets kinda look like a star-topped Christmas tree that fell over.  See below:

The Christmas tree is toppling over! And now you can't unsee it either.

There were many jokes and stories about cats climbing decorated trees that escalated into fits of giggles while I was working on this.  That led me to try to find something, anything, that wouldn't invoke giggle fits when I looked at the book.  I ended up finding a period or at least traceable art worthy selection that wasn't going to scream "Christmas is ruined!!!"

With the comet and unicorn drawn, they just needed paint. The acanthus leaves and helm got some paint as well.

Black outlining was added to make the chain pop and you can't even tell I started painting with the wrong metallic.  Highlighting was added to the acanthus leaves and a little bit to the helm. 

The final picture of the ancestry (with Thyra's calligraphy) is below.