The pandemic really got to a lot of people.  Especially me.  I haven't posted since June 2019, a couple of months into the pandemic and now it is 2021.  Artistically I had a difficult time and I did a few things but I felt that my work could have been better.  We are our own worst critic.  I hope that the people who received these pieces are pleased because that is what matters.


The Artwork:

The first one is a piece that I made for a Silver Tyger which I think came out nice.  This was for a Zofeia Jodurqin with a Mongolian personna.    It is modeled after a mongolian travel pass.  It was given out October 11, 2020 in an Ethereal court.  Simple, to the point, gold gouache paint on black paper. 

Words on safe passage

Tindal and Alberic, Mighty Khans East, Give to ZZofeia Jodurqin Silver Tyger Award her Arms

Words said in court

Tindal and Alberic, Mighty Khans of these Eastern Lands hereby greet our visitor from afar with mighty rejoicing,

The Warrior before us has illustrious skill in armored combat and brings great fame to the Northern Army horde.  Zofeia Jodurqin will be honored and Awarded arms to be carried by her alone Per bend sable and gules, a Bactrian camel statant Or maintaining under its front hoof a wolf's head cabossed argent, a base rayonny Or and furthermore, induct her into the Order of the Silver Tyger, thus giving her this paize for safe passage across our lands, done in the fall of our reign at our Ethereal Court.

Words, calligraphy and illumination: Nataliia Anastasiia Evgenova

Another piece of artwork was for a good friend Cezilia Raposa. 

I had the honor of working with a great word person, Countess Meggie, and we made some real beautiful art together.  It was given out February 21, 2021 at an Ethereal court.   My photography skills don't necessarily put this piece in its best light. 


It is on pergamenata, with black goauche for the background.  I included personalized items, such as the compass rose and Cezilia's beloved cat Winston. 

That's it for now.  More later.

Much as I have tried to not have the Signet job take over my art life, well, here it is in all it's glory.  I haven't posted since October of 2017, and it is now June of 2019.  Okay, then.  Let's catch up. 

From present backwards into time here we go.

For a dear friend, I made a Silver Rapier scroll for his elevation given on June 8, 2019.  Matthew Miller is the nom de plume of Ysmay that she uses for fencing.  I went straight to our good friend George Silver for resource material and the play on words was for fun with a very Italian Queen and a very English subject.  

The words are as follows:


O that men for their defence would but give their mind to practice the true fight indeed and learn to bear true British wards for their defence,and that those imperfect Italian devices with rapier and poniard would be clean cast aside save for the protection of Us and Our persons, King Ozurr and Queen Fortune, most giving, loving and trusting of Their subject Matthew Miller, though he be English, do say this day that therefore with the zealous and unfeigned love that We bear for his true knowledge of this noble science and the excellence of the rapier fight, do we induct Matthew Miller into the Order of the Silver Rapier on this eighth day of June, A.S. Fifty four at our Southern Region War Camp in our Barony of Carillion.

From George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defense

Words, calligraphy and illumination by Nataliia Anastasiia Evgenova
Illumination done in pen and ink on opaline vellum, which is a vegetable composite to replicate animal skin vellum.

...............the initials of the Royalty giving the scroll, Ozurr and Fortune!

A scroll for our beloved Zsuzsy done in pencil on pergamenata with Higgins eternal ink for the words.  I thought that Zsu would like a portrait and I worked in one of her hanging earrings that she loves.  This was done for East Kingdom Fifty Year in June of 2018.

There was a writ for a Laurel for Raziya that I was able to do.  This was a gigantic leap for me as calligraphy is not my gig, but for Raziya, I'd do it.  December, 2017.  Based on calligraphy in the Mira Calligraphiae monumenta.

Silver Brooch for Antoni for his metal work.  A portrait that I snagged off of the devil of all sources, Facebook, and some nice pencil work, and voila!  I know that I did do the calligraphy but don't have a picture of it.  Drat.  Given in October of 2017.

More to come as I find more.  Share yours!

I called dibs on a Silver Crescent assignment for Caoilfhionn.  She, along with Brennan, gave me my Master of Defense, so there is a little bit of a desire to give her something special.  I also want to encourage her in her endeavors in fencing.  I was given quite a bit of latitude on what I could do.  I was told that she liked my fencing manuals but would love anything that I did.  I wanted to make something stunning.

I did a lot of thinking and some research.  I found a medieval representation of a mermaid.  Caoilfhionn also has blue and white flowers as her badge and I wanted to incorporate that into the design. 

I used Black Arches paper, 80 pound, with miniatum ink not regular miniatum because I wanted to make fine lines.  The white ink was Dr. Martin's White Ink and the paint was Holbein or Windsor Newton goauche.

The Dr. Martin's white ink definitely made a more consistent layer on the black paper.  My calligraphy is getting better, but I can still see some slanting here and there.  The pencil layer is visible, and the layer of miniatum layer is almost invisible against the black paper on the left hand bottom of the paper.

First layer of gold leaf on all that miniatum.

Second layer of miniatum, and some buffing.  You can see the shine in the upper portion of the photograph.  I started to add details and white accents.

Layer of ultramarine goauche, Windsor Newton.    I continued to put several more layers of blue to even out the color.  As you can see from the photograph, there are dead spots where the paint was just soaked up by the paper.  Helpful hint for those doing Black Hours scrolls, always make more paint than you think you will need and leave time to do several, several layers. 

It has been since June that I posted last, and boy has there been a lot going on.

First up - I received the honor of receiving a Laurel in July.  Yay.
Next, I took over as Tyger Clerk of the Signet for the East, and that has cut into my process photos of artwork and documenting my progress. 
Luckily I have taken some pictures, which I will share here.

Laurel scroll for me by Mistress Isabelle Chamberlain.  Wow, just wow.

Summer ended up with me teaching the drawing class again at Pennsic.   Below are pictures of the portrait class.

Count Ruslan is one of my regular models.  

My fabulous model, Mistress Anastasiia Gutane.

I'm at Known World Heraldic and Scribal Symposium and realized my blog is out of date.

​

Woohoo!  I was able to do the Golden Rapier Scroll for my friend Engracia Madrigal.  It was an effort put together by many to surprise her with awesome.

Engracia has a Spanish personna, and is the cadet of Alys MacIntoisch.  Alys was awesome and provided me a couple of different options, and Alys particularly like this one:

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=12793

I forgot to take many pictures at each step, but did a little better with some of the details.

The first step was Alys wrote the words, then Rhi translated them into Spanish, then I took the tiniest nib I had and wrote the words in Spanish.

SPANISH
 
El 11 de febrero, en el año cincuenta y uno de la Sociedad, en Nuestra Corte Real en Concordia of the Snows, Nosotros, Brion el Rey y Ana la Reina, ante un conjunto suficiente de señores, caballeros, maestros, compañeros, buenos ciudadanos del reino, otorgaron y dotaron a Engracia de Madrigal de la Order of the Golden Rapier, junto con todos los derechos, privilegios, inmunidades, obligaciones, beneficios, y subsidios que le corresponden, tanto como se han dotado a cualquier otro miembro de la Orden antes mencionada. Nuestra concesión y dotación a la mencionada Engracia, habiendo sido examinada y plenamente comprendida por Nosotros, es por la presente aprobada, encomendada, confirmada, ejecutada y ratificada, y Nos comprometemos a guardar, observar y cumplir todo lo mencionado en ella, y cada parte de ella, realmente y eficazmente. Además, renunciamos a todo fraude, evasión, falsedad y fingimiento, y comprometemos, por Nosotros mismos y por Nuestros herederos y sucesores, que no violaremos la concesión y la dotación arriba mencionada, ni ninguna parte de ella, en cualquier momento o en cualquier manera.  En la atestación y corroboración de la cual, firmamos Nuestros nombres a ésta, Nuestra carta.
 

 
ENGLISH
 
On 11 February, in the fifty-first year of the Society, in our Royal Court at Concordia of the Snows, We, Brion the King and Anna the Queen, before a sufficient assemblage of peers, knights, masters, companions, nobles, and good citizens of the realm, granted and endowed Engracia de Madrigal with the Order of the Golden Rapier, along with all rights, privileges, immunities, obligations, benefits, allowances and entitlements attendant thereupon, as much as have been endowed to any and all other members of the aforenamed Order.  Our grant and endowment to the abovesaid Engracia, having been examined and fully understood by us, is hereby approved, commended, confirmed, executed, and ratified, and we promise to keep, observe, and fulfill all the abovesaid that is set forth therein, and every part and parcel of it, really and effectively.  We further renounce all fraud, evasion, falsehood, and pretense, and avow, for ourselves and for our heirs and successors, that we shall not violate the above-stated grant and endowment, or any part of it, at any time or in any manner whatsoever.  In attestation and corroboration whereof, we sign our names to this our charter.


Words by Alys Macintosich
Translation by Rhiannon the Curious
Calligraphy and Illumination by Nataliia Anastasiia Evgenova
 

At this point you can see the tiny words, which I covered in frisket paper so that I would not make a mess.  You want to know WHY I did this?  Because the first draft of this scroll met with an egregious ink accident.  If any of you heard the cries of "OH NO!" on FB, that was it.

So the frisket paper, which is very shiny and ugly, went over the words to cover it from my mistakes.  I highly recommend it.

Above you can see the design for the illumination and the OGR.  The OGR is designed after my original Athena OGR pin because I wanted Gracie to have one of mine, even if only painted and inked.

Details of the left "E".  I decided that as a design element I would put a lot of swords everywhere I could.  It delighted me to figure out ways to put the swords into this design.  The large letters were EL as the first letters of the scroll wording, and referenced back to the original exemplar.

Right side "L" with swords, flowers and decorative elements.

Inking, so much inking.  Inked in the Two initials, the decorative elements, started the many, may swords.  There are 23 swords including the OGR pin.

I mixed up some Verdigris which made a beautiful green.  Used the glass plate, muller and added gum arabic to make pigment.  Painted away.  I could not find a red period pigment that I really liked, so fell back to the purple red Holbein goauche that is my all time favorite.

Ultramarine as the blue for the OGR pin for the win.  Finish detailing with ink (Higgins Eternal) and a crow quill pen and done.

I was very happy with this scroll.  The calligraphy was uniform, small and happy.  While this wasn't a flashy scroll with a lot of gold leaf, I am very happy because it has so much detail.  While it harkens back to the original, it does stand on its own.

Marguerite is a great friend of mine, very dear to me, and I was asked to do her scroll.  I was going to go all out.

In conference with Alys MacIntoisch, we delved into her personna of a Scottish reaver, and while Alys made beautiful words in the original Scots, I dove into the Aberdeen Beastiary.

The words

In all of its late 15th century Scots glory

Brion, by rycht off armes kynge off the Est, and Anna, by the same rycht Quhene, to the justiciaris, schireffis, prouosts and thir baillieis and the reste of owr ministeris and faithfull subgectis to quhom thaise present lettiris sall cume, greitings.  Know that it is the intencioun of owr will that Marguerite inghean Lochlainn sall be and heirby is raisit and eleuaitit to the Ordoure off the Pellican, with all richtis, privelegis, frensches, essys, and fredwmys appertinent thairvnto, to hawe and to hold the saim freelie, fully, paisibilly and withoutin perturbacion or distroubelance.  So we ordour yhow, and eche of yhow, firmlie and vnder threit off the appropriat penaltie, that yhow schold not imputt ony wrang, greifance or injustis or impose ony impediment or vexacione on the forsayde Marguerite in the exercese off the said-foure richtis, privelegis and frensches, essys, and fredwmys, or permitt thais thingis to be imposit on hir in keipyng with the tenore off owr grant and intencioun declarit abuf. In testymony off quhiche matere we ordainyt thais owr letteris to be made patent and proclaimit in owr councel at Bergental on the thryd day off December in the fiftie-fyrst yhere off the Societe.

In modern English

Brion, by right of arms king of the East, and Anna, by the same right Queen, to the justiciars, sheriffs, provosts and their bailies and the rest of our ministers and faithful subjects to whom these present letters shall come, greetings. Know that it is the intention of our will, as set forth herein, that Marguerite inghean Lochlainn shall be and hereby is raised and elevated to the Order of the Pelican, with all rights, privileges, appertaining thereto, to have and to hold the same freely, fully, peacefully and without impediment.  So we order you, and each of you, firmly and under threat of the appropriate penalty, that you should not inflict any evil, annoyance, injustice or impose any impediment or aggravation on the said Marguerite in the exercise of the rights and privileges aforesaid, or permit these things to be inflicted on her in keeping with the tenor of our grant and intention declared above. In testimony of which matter we ordered these our letters to be made patent and read aloud in our council held at Bergental on ___ December in the fifty-first year of the Society.

Links for the Aberdeen https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f35r
Examples of the hand used: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f34v

The Aberdeen Bestiary is a lavish and costly book with illuminations containing gold leaf and exquisite detail.  It was written and illuminated in England around 1200.   The tracing of this manuscript shows that in 1542 it was listed in the inventory of the Old Royal Library, within the Westminster Palace.  The library had been assembled by Henry VIII, to give a home to manuscripts and documents that he had rescued from monastaries that were dissolved during his reign.  Henry VIII, received professional assistance from John Leland with the library to catalog these books and the Aberdeen Bestiary was listed as  No.518 Liber de bestiarum natura. The book itself is 300mm high and 210mm.

During the summer I had purchased a piece of vellum, just a little bit bigger than 300mm high and 210mm, so I decided to go all in.  I have never done a scroll on vellum before, but this was worth it and I was willing to gamble that if it went to hell, I would start up again on perg, my old standby.

I was not disappointed.  Vellum was lovely to work on.  Pricey, but lovely.

I decided to do gold leaf also.  I have struggled in the past with gold leaf, and this one was not perfect, but I am getting better.  So I did up the design, first in pencil, and then in pen and ink (using my trust crow quill pen and Higgins eternal ink) and laid down the mordant first, then the gold leaf.  As you can see, I wanted to include the elements of the two households of Marguerite, Sharc Pit and House Lochleven, and the Lady of the Rose badge as well as her own badge.  In the center I placed the Pelicans.  The story of the Pelicans in the Bestiary was very interesting.  It told of the Pelican and her Brood, then the Pelican killing her Brood, and finally the Pelican plucking her breast to resurect her Brood.  There were very religious overtones to this story, but both Alys and I really liked the idea of a Pelican who would be tough enough to take her own Brood out, but then revive them.

I used permacol as the mordant.  It was very thick in some spots.  One of the things I will improve is how to maintain a better overall consistency.   At this point, I started zooming and forgot to take pictures.

 Above is a close up of the gilding.

One of the difficulties with using vellum is well, it curls.   So I would tape it down, and then when I un-taped, curl again.  So when taking pictures, you can see the curl of the paper. The lines are straight.  The calligraphy is getting better, but I am still missing some of the feel of the medieval text.  At the end, at the point of In testymony, my letters starting getting larger.  I realized after that my hand was getting tired. Next time I will notice that and take a break.  I had chosen to do a very small hand, and I'm hoping to add pictures that give you the scale.   If I were to guess, two lines above are about the size of a dime.

The painting beginning.  With period pigment, ultramarine, which I had made up ahead of time.  Each layer, first the base layer of blue, green, red, pale peachy color for the Pelican and her Brood, then overlay ofmore color on top.   I did not take enough pictures at this point.  I also used mosaic gold to compliment the gilding.

Closeup of the illumination.

Finished product, complete with detailing within the pelicans.  A lot of white work went into this.

Reflection - tiny is awesome.   I need to take more pictures. I need to take better pictures.  A little more consistency, and I'm going to get some feedback from people I know on how to make the even bigger jump of making it look even more medieval looking, but also professional finished.

This is the story of the twenty four hour court baron scroll.   I have a good friend Lottieri Malocchio who was getting a Court Barony, but something got lost in the translation on the scroll assignment, so I didn't end up knowing about it until Wednesday night for a Saturday event. 

So, quick!  To the Bat Cave! 

Some quick research and I find this:  A German woodcut of a drummer dated 1525-1530, part of a series of fifty woodcuts picturing Landsknecht soldiers.

No time for fuss, or muss.  I get a picture of Malocchio, and I'm off.  Within 24 hours, I produce a pen and ink version which is a little bit more 16th century Italian Master of Defense.

Pennsic was fun, art-wise.  The weather, as everyone is aware, sucked and was very accurately described as "The War in Satan's jockstrap". 

I taught classes for the first time, which was fun, but a little stressful.  The stressful part was being aware of time.  Normally, during Pennsic, I am aware of daytime or nighttime, eating time or fighting time.  Not much else.  I needed to be more aware of hourly time, which brought me out of my medieval mindset.   I also brought my iPhone to use to keep time for the 2 minute, 10 minute and 15 minute poses.  I think I would like to get an hour glass in different sizes.

Class number 1:  Figure Drawing Salon

Draw from live models in medieval poses. Practice your sketching, get feedback, or just relax and work on your drawing. Bring drawing supplies.

I had wonderful models, Mistress Anastasiia Gutane, Master Ruslan, Master Lucien, and Mistress Aldreda for the two sessions.  The first session was Peace week on Thursday, and the second was during War week on Wednesday.  It was an excellent idea to space them out.  Aldreda mentioned that she had a website that gave advice on using models, and I am hoping that she can pass that along because that will help me in making good use, and treating my models well.

I also ran a second class which was Portraits on Friday of Peace Week which was:

How to draw portraits of people. What are the specific things that you need to look for that changes a base portrait in order to "read" as a specific person? This class will guide you in the development of those skills. Bring drawing materials, pencils, pastels, charcoal and paper of your choice. Some limited supplies will be available

Student working on portrait of Master Feral.

Student working on portrait of Sir Antonio.

Student working on portrait of Viscount Alexandre.

Master Ruslan and Mistress Anastasiia.

As well as doing classes, I was teaching a friend from a neighboring camp about painting.  Mary and I have been trying to get together to do this for a while, but she lives way south and I live way north, but we were finally living within 15 feet of each other.  So I dragged out my supplies and I taught her some painting.  It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon during peace week and it made more sense to her (I hope) in person. 

The other artsy thing is that I am working on during Pennsic is my Artifacts of Life entry for 2017.  This year I decided I wanted to make an artist palate like the ones that I have seen in the self portraits of many Italian renaissance painters. 

I worked with Gaius in camp, our resident wood worker, and took a piece of wood he had lying around and I started shaving it down with a hand plane.  Gaius is a really good instructor in that he shows the stroke needed, and then hands the person the tool, while watching.  He then adjusts his student's grip, the tool's bite, and the angle as needed to help the student succeed.  I worked for about an hour, shaving down the wood until it was as smooth as I wanted it to be.  We clamped it down and then made a hole with another hand tool of destruction.  I'll have to check with Gaius as to the name of the tool, but it was a tool that makes a oval rather than circle hole.  I, then, shaved the edges for a rounded edge rather than a square edge.

The piece needs some hand sanding, and I even might use a hand plane to make it a little thinner.    After that, I will need to oil or varnish it.  I've already started digging up research on that here on what the vikings did and here on a blog about woodworking using medieval methods  and here on the Smithsonian Museum Conservation site as well as looking through my notes on Cennini.

First my re-enactment piece, then the Research pictures.

Caterina von Hemessen, 1548

`The East Kingdom Calendar project is a fundraiser for the royalty fund.   I did it last year, and was asked again to do it this year.   The website is here.

The assignment for the 2017 calendar - signs of the horoscopes and I decided that I would love to do Scorpio, my own sign. Many calendars of the period of time that I study (500 AD to 1600 AD) have illuminations of the astrological symbols as well as labors that occurred during that calendar month.  I was assigned October, and Scorpio.   I was provided with some research that Gundormr provided to assist all the artists on this prjecct, and also did my own digging.

RESEARCH:

The medieval visuals for Scorpio showed me that sometimes the artists really didn't know what a real scorpion looked like, and so the representation was on a spectrum of somewhat like a scorpion, or more like an ugly, black bug or a dragon-like creature with pincers for good measure.  Dragons came up frequently.  Sometimes a fierce dragon, sometimes a dragon biting its own tail, and sometimes a two headed dragon.   I collected a variety of medieval visual representations of Scorpio and started to decide what elements I would like to incorporate in the calendar.  The calendar has very particular requirements as to size and includes wording on each month.    So step one, the examples.

Horoscope of Prince Iskandar, grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror. This horoscope shows the position of the heavens at the moment of Iskandar's birth on 25th April 1384.  The scorpion looks like a modern day horseshoe crab than a scorpion.

Close up of the scorpio portion of the Horoscope of Prince Iskandar, grandson of Tamerlane, the Turkman Mongol conqueror. This horoscope shows the position of the heavens at the moment of Iskandar's birth on 25th April 1384.

Scorpio, Book of hours, Italy, probably Milan, ca. 1473, This has a nice color scheme, but this is the epitome of black bug.  What is interesting is that another artist for the calendar project chose this exemplar but for Libra.

Manuscript from 1447, Italian,  Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo II.  This is an interesting one, but the color scheme seemed too faded for a calendar assignment.  Here we start seeing the Dragons being included in the text.

 Illustrating the entry in a herbal for the plant called plantain, a man defends himself from a scorpion and a dragon-like viper (adder). Plantain was said to cure the bite of both creatures.   This composition was interesting and had some potential.   As with the previous manuscript, we see a scorpion and a dragon.

Above:    Astronomical treatises [Sufi latinus],  Scorpio, 1250-1275, Italy, possibly Bologna.

I found several examples where a dragon was used in place of a scorpion.    There are additional ones here : www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=lansdowne_ms_383_f002r 
and here www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_50000_fs001r

Drawing by Theodoros Pelecanos, in a 1478 copy of a lost alchemical tract by Synesius

The Hunterian Psalter, England, C. 1170, Zodiac, Sign of Scorpio, Folio 5v. Two headed dragon.

Close up of The Hunterian Psalter, England, C. 1170, Zodiac, Sign of Scorpio, Folio 5v

For extra points, I am subscribed to a blog called Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts and is published by the British Library.  They post about calendars on a regular basis and recently on August 22 did a "Which Star Sign Are You?" on their blog.    I was able to use this website to do more research on calendars and styles.

I decided that I loved the two headed dragon in The Hunterian Psalter.  I set up my pictures, reviewed the text and decided I needed to amend the text to include that scorpio appears as a large scorpion or dragon.  I would need to edit the text down to fit into the space I was allocating for the words.

The text ended up :

"Scorpio appeareth as a large Scorpion or dragon.  She is Fleumatik, ruleth ye Priue Parts of Men and Women, and indicateth Subtelte and Deceite.  When the Mone is on the hunt for the Scorpion, She will seke Nouelte when She needeth to be more dependable, and She might ende vp dronk or in a destitute state.   If Iupiter wandreth bi ye Scorpion, then one mai loke to Ipocrisie, possiblie Bitraiel."    Text by Master Christian von Jauergk.

The other adjustment is that I could not use gold leaf for the project (because gold leaf does not photograph well and so we are asked not to use it)and would have to substitute.

LAYOUT

I printed the words and used a sheet that THL Geffrei Maudeleyne provides.  This is the first time that I used this sheet, and it can be used as long as credit is given.

Layout, line drawing on pergemenata.

After many practice runs, calligraphy laid down.   On one of the test sheets I made the entire layout complete with illumination so that I could lay down tests of the colors, inking, etc.

Mixing Rublev Roman black, and some Hematite.   I ended up using the black, but not the Hematite.  I mixed the pigments by taking the ground pigments, grinding them a little finer and then adding a little bit of water to moisten the pigment, followed by a couple of drops of gum arabic as the binder.  I then mixed in more water to the desired consistency and placed the pigment in the shells that I had been collecting for some time.

Color matching.  See the test sheet with color matching in the middle, and then the test sheet on the left is available for laying the color down and checking how well it is mixed, if adjustments need to be made.   This is the messy part of art that many don't see.

Cleaned up artwork, inking in the illumination.   I used a crow quill pen and Higgins Eternal Ink.

Laying down base layer of dark green and starting the greys.

I ground up some yellow ochre (same process as above, extra grinding, adding water, then gum arabic) and laid down a lovely shade of yellow.  Not quite gold leaf, but it made for a nice contrast against the green and gold.

Now for the lovely details.   This is where the roman black came in.  The roman black is post period to the time period that I am studying, however, it is also closer to period pigments than just a nice processed black out of a tube of Windsor Newton.   I felt that the substitution was acceptable, and am working on acquiring lamp black or bone black for experiments later.

Close up of detail of two headed dragon. Note that there is some blending, but use of the period technique of small hatches (not cross-hatching, that is not found in the exemplars that I have reviewed) to apply the shading.

First layer of detailing on illumination. 

Closeup of hatching technique, and layering.

Addition of the red pigments on the initial "S" and on the dragon.  Three different shades of red employed for the details of the wing. Dark greenish black filigree in the green interior around the dragon.  Paint the dragon's toenails black.   More subtle shading of the entire dragon, building up color, shades, nuances of bone and muscle.

Finished piece.  Light circle details in the gold circle, highlights and deepening of the dark areas.   Application of eraser in all areas.

Reflection :

I have noticed that I need to take a step back while working, as there are flaws that I see from afar that I do not see when nose is two inches from the work.  My calligraphy is improving, however, I still need to work on my spacing.  Even six months later from when I was working on this in July, I can see improvement in my calligraphy in my current pieces that I do not see here.  I also need to work on my technique of not so bumpy circles, which is the first thing that jumps out at me when I look at this illumination now.  I will be researching some techniques, and also practicing inking in and painting in cleaner edges.  I love  the dragon.  I think that the body of the dragon is some of my best shading work.

All in all, I am proud of the research, which I think is much more in depth than previous work, and that the level of painting is getting better and better, but I see still see places where I can improve.