Black hours scroll for a fellow artist.  Companion of the Maunche for Aurelia Colleoni a'Buccafurno, including portrait and over the top gold and silver leaves.  I'm pleased with my calligraphy on this one, it is improving as I practice more, and I used black arches paper, gold and white goauche, and Dr. Ph Martin's bleed proof white for the calligraphy.  I used a regular calligraphy pen and painted the Dr. Martin's ink - which is super thick btw - onto the pen with a little bit of water onto the pen to help with the flow. 

Calligraphy and illumination by me
Words by: Liadan ingen Chineada (LEE-a-din IN-yen keh-NAH-dah)
Based on a sonnet.

Yes, it seems that it has been tough to really keep anything as we tromp through the pandemic, but here we are.  My plan is that I'm just gonna throw down some good stuff I've been doing and fill in things later.  All work is based on an exemplar.  When I have had the brain space to pull and upload the research, I certainly will.   Hopefully.

One of the tough things is that I have been struggling throughout the pandemic to do anything creative.  I have found others are in similar spots.  My art went a little backward and I'm trying to bring it around again and increase my abilities.  Without practice my art muscles atrophied.  This is not an excuse, just an acknowledgement that I am in a different place than I was two years ago.  I'm still working on improving my calligraphy and often farm it out to my gifted calligrapher friends.   I'm also my harshest critic.  I love that the art that I have been able to do because it feeds me, and it is a new beginning.

So to new beginnings.

First up - Maunche for Joannes von Braunsthweig given a short time ago and is in the hands of the recipient.  Formal date of presentation is March 5, 2022.   I loved the happy, little swirls and detailing.

Next up.  Golden Rapier for Wentlyanna Bengrek, a very good friend and comrade in arms, given out at Bhakail Yule in December of 2021.  I found a rapier manual that showed several poses and that looked all the world to me like our modern melee tactics and put Wentlyanna front and center.  I had to put clothes on them first because, well, it was Agrippa and Agrippa is a clothing optional manual.   I really wanted to have a nice portrait of Wentlyanna and was able to find a picture of her that looked so lovely and I was quite pleased with how it came out.  I used white goauche, grey goauche which I thinned a little to capture the shading of the face.  I used pen and ink for the rest of the scroll. 

In  late 2021, I did a Silver Crescent for Alexandre L'Espangnol de Orleanz which had to chase him for a while.   It was supposed to go out at Crown in November, but didn't catch up to him until Bhakail Yule in December, of 2021.

Another collaboration.

Words by Sir Matthias Grunewald, Calligraphy (so tiny, so beautiful) by Duchess Thyra, and illumination mine.   This piece went out at the Coronation, in the last court of Tindal and Alberic.

I consulted with his lovely lady and she said: "If someone wants to go overboard, the Borso d'Este Bible is a fine example of over the top."

Thus, that is the exemplar for the piece.

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.