Pelican - Mikael

 August 2024

Scroll 2 of 2 that went out at Pennsic - Pelican for Mikael Melrakki. This again was from a photo from Margreta's Sweden trip. This one is in the Swedish History Museum (Historiska Museet) currently with their Viking World display (https://vikingar.historiska.se/object_details.php...). I like that this one lined up well with elements from his persona. I also liked that this "modern" paint was redone to be in line with other similar aged stones had for color and motif (per a note in the museum's write up on the extant piece). It makes me feel like what I'm doing is more "real". I don't carve any of my stones due to space and safety constraints (I have a young child and two very well meaning and nosy cats....Also let's be real. I am clumsy as heck.)

I didn't change much here due to a request to keep it simple, serious, and as authentic as I could. The build in "drop" invoked a clear sense of the Pelican, so I didn't add anything else to the illumination other than extending some of the beasties downward. I did not do any text on the black bc the contrast I was getting with my materials was crappy and my hands were tired. This made me shorten the last bit of text to instead of saying "Feilinn raised this stone in AS fifty nine", it just says "Feilinn AS 59". I did not add the white to the beast's eyes because I felt it would have made them look like Urnes style googley-eyed monsters.