P's and Q's, continued

in which our plucky heroine shares the tale of the completing of the first original scroll...

When we left off, I had completed the sketching of the overall design, prior to transfering it to the bristol board of the finished piece.

After checking that the calligraphy will fit in the space allotted to it, as shown here, the overall design is lightly penciled in, lines drawn to guide the writing, and the final calligraphy is done...

Then the whole design is inked in, to provide guidance for painting the decorative border

I am loving the Finetec metallic paint, which is easy to use and quite reflective, albeit hard to photograph well. This bright gold color is called "Arabian Gold", they make an assortment of metallic colors and iridescent paints

a closer view of the metallic paint

Once the base colors are filled in, (as shown here almost completed), additional details will be added, decorative patterning and diapering of the backgrounds, shading of clothing, feathers on the birds, and features for the faces, and then an additional detailing with ink outlines as needed...

The completed scroll is a piece of work that meets my ongoing criteria to create things I myself would be pleased to own. There are all sorts of small details that I hope will bring a smile to the final owner, who will be gifted this scroll to commemorate the honor of being StormRider champion for the last year, for the Barony of Stromgard (Vancouver WA)...

tiny bird, a butterfly, decorated metallic initial letters, and a closer look at some of the fine line painted detailing

another tiny bird, a small hunting scene, and part of the foliated border vine. The callligraphy is about 1/4" tall, for an idea of the scale

a small droll snail/person hybrid holds a shield with the heraldry of Susan de Winter, as part of the righthand border

A final look at the completed horse and rider design on the lower border of the scroll, with shading and linework details. I also hid my initials in the tree bark

and last of all, a close view of the large initial, 2" tall, with golden metallic paint, a diapered background, and whitework decoration. There were many rabbits in the manuscripts that inspired my design, so I saw fit to include one here... The original that gave me the idea was on this page in the Book of Hours, St Omer

get r done

It has been a while since our plucky heroine managed to make time for writing here...

In the interim, there was camping at Egils* last weekend, where I spent time with my SCA household, taught a class on carving blocks for printing, and realised that it has been well over twenty years that I have been camping with the same group of friends (and hundreds of other people - Egils is a BIG event, though not as big as it was formerly, there were only about 720+ people this year), some of the friends I have were not even born when I began to be active in this hobby...

While I was there I started the embroidery that will decorate the yoke of a new tunic for Vanya. While I remember him as a chubby toddler with golden curls, sitting outside his parents tent and banging on a saucepan with a spoon, he is now a strapping young man and apprentice blacksmith, tall and bearded, and about to get engaged to a lovely woman. Time flies, don't blink... Anyway, he requested bears, with hammers, and these Viking Age bears were the result. He, and I, are both pretty happy with how they turned out.

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There are actually two major SCA camping events that happen here in An Tir over Memorial Day weekend, Egils just to the south of Eugene, and Grand Thing out in Astoria... The illuminated scroll I was working on was awarded to Susan de Winter, outgoing StormRider of Stromgard, at the Grand Thing event. While I couldn't be there, my pal Dayna made sure the finished scroll got there safely, and even took a picture of the recipient:

(I plan on posting more about finishing the scroll tomorrow, there are a lot more photos to share...)

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Doing my best to focus on the positive, which is a challenge, but possible. Hard not to be grouchy, as the ongoing pain from my left achilles tendon issues continues to make walking really difficult, particularly when on uneven ground, like when camping. This morning I woke up with "exciting" new neck/shoulder pain, having slept badly last night, stretched on awakening and now have hot coals under my scapula. Grump grump grump...  but... on the other hand... I was able to set up my tent this year, with minimal help, unlike last year when I was too weak to be able to do it at all. And, thankfully, I was away camping this last weekend, and not riding transit during the horrific attack here in PDX that killed two men and left a third still in hospital recovering. I spent time yesterday just sitting on my front porch and being grateful, thinking about all I have to be grateful for and enjoying the shade and listening to the children of the neighborhood playing down the street.

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June will be busy. I intend to take time to set up a food plan, to help with budgeting and with my ongoing effort to take off a few pounds to try and make my legs less painful. There will be sewing like the wind, since I have at least eight or more garments to complete for others, prior to ATWW at the beginning of July. There is enameling - the Wastekeep hat enamels need done, and I will be teaching an introductory enamel workshop at the end of the month. Not to mention, it is time for summer pruning trees, the apple is looking quite shaggy, and I need to seriously thin the fruit set so I will get some nice big apples this year, and I need to apply the nylon footies to foil the bugs that want to live in said baby apples. Had best get out every morning early for a while for tree care. Plus somewhere in there, I ought to get back to the declutter efforts, which have been rather lax the last few months

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May SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	grey jersey pants	loom weights	bag to Goodwill
2	brown trim bands	sakura embroidery	bag to Goodwill
3	brown jersey pants	supports for peas	x
4	planter box	repair bathing suit	x
5	calligraphy for scroll	x	x
6	Thora hat cone	x	x
7	illuminated scroll	x	x
8	bears with hammers	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x

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*Egil Skallagrimsson Memorial Tournament XLIII

a scribal sojourn

in which our plucky heroine minds her p's and q's...

I recently volunteered to create an original SCA award scroll for Stromgard, as I really enjoy the drawing and painting aspect of the scribal arts. But since I want to be able to do the whole scroll myself, that means learning calligraphy as well. There are quite a few different styles of lettering; I am learning Gothic, since I love the style of illumination that was common in western Europe in the 14th century.

I started out by practicing lower case letter forms on graph paper, using a calligraphy felt pen, the larger size helps with learning to see how the letters are shaped, when good and when needs improvement. Then I switched to using a dip pen nib, in a much smaller size, that would work for the overall size of the scroll I am making, here the letters are less than 1/4" tall, written with a nib that is less than 2mm in width.

I realised that I needed to learn to make capital letters as well, once I spent a fair amount of time online looking at the three manuscripts that were my inspiration. While some of the text in history had inset versal capitals, it was much more common to only use versal letters for end caps, and to use calligraphed capitals inside the text block. So, I opened my trusty Drogin, and set about learning the "uppercase" letters too!

(the blurry edges and blobs are in part because I am writing on graph paper, which is too absorbent to handle calligraphy ink)

After writing through the text several times, over the course of several days, I had a sense of how it would work written out as a block, where to put the end capitals on the left, and the line fillers at the righthand ends... one last time on graph paper, so I can overlay it and begin to mark out the space where the rest of the design will happen.

While doing the research for this project, I found and fell in love with these ladies on horseback, and since this is a scroll for an equestrian honor, using those images as inspiration seemed appropriate.

(detail of my sketch)

... finally it was time to start actually writing on the bristol board surface that will be the actual scroll... it was so much nicer than writing on graph paper, and my pen work looked a lot crisper, though obviously still very much work of a beginner. I can only work at the level I am currently, it keeps me humble to try new things, and I can see gradual improvement from where I started. As always, my own standard is "would I be happy to receive this" and in this case, so far, my answer is yes. Hopefully as the work continues and I add the painted and inked decorations I will still be happy with the outcome.

I do go through a lot of graph paper and tracing paper when doing design work... it allows me to keep the good parts of a sketch, and go on from there, gradually working out how I want the design to look. This is several iterations in to my efforts to design the illuminated border decoration. I have been looking mostly at images of The Book of Hours (fragmentary), Use of St Omer, from the early 14th century, for my inspiration, though the women riding horseback are from a contemporary work The Queen Mary Psalter, and I found the little person holding a shield that is hanging from the foliage when I was looking through images of the Luttrell Psalter

Once I add a design for the large remaining space above the text block, it will be time to transfer the design to the actual paper, ink in all the motifs, and begin painting. I predict a fun weekend!