Maunche - Thorfinr

The idea for this scroll came to me pretty quickly as soon as I read the write up for the recipient.  The curveball with this one was the recipient is a Norse persona studying Chinese brewing among other things.

My research into finding a runestone that had any type of brewing, led me to the Stora Hammars stones in Gotland, Sweden.  Two of the four stones are still legible and the third stone (Stira Hammars III) has an image of Odin stealing mead in the form of an eagle.  Through the creative process, I ended up only going with images from the Stora Hammar I since the images from Stora Hammar III weren't as clear.  The Norsemen on boats sailing around I thought were a good nod to the variety of talents the recipient had as well as the study of brewing in a far off local.

The big creative departure from the original stone to my piece was the addition of runes.  The Stora Hammars do not have any runes themselves.  I provided with some amazing words that deserved a place to shine on the finished piece, so I took some creative license and ran with it

Stora Hammars I

I went back to my old familiar friend Liquitex acrylic for the paints and found a lovely few pieces of slate at Home Depot which became the canvas for this.  What I likes about these patio tiles vs the slate square tile I'd previously used was the irregular shape of the stone itself.  It made it feel more like a mini-runestone.  A mock-up of the actual stone was made to figure out the rune/words spacing.  After I have already committed to using this particular stone, I realized how uneven it was in sections.  Lines for the runes were made with my drafting ruler and Ames lettering guide.  I tried a bulk transfer of the images using graphite paper (which did a terrible job, btw) and ended up faking it/free-handing WAAAAAY more than I actually planned to.  Much of the detail in the top panel was lost and much arting had to be done to make it look like the original.  The bottom panel was slightly better, but that's not saying much all things considered.

After some peer opinions from my scribal group, I went with the consensus to do this monochrome and fill in the background pieces with red.  There are some obvious mistakes made, but I think at this point I might be the only one who can pick them out.

Here are some progress pics:

Scissors included for scale.  The rock is ~9.5 inches tall, 6 or 7 inches wide.

The original sacrifice in the top panel has a blank space where there is a valknut in the original.  I had originally put the Maunche symbol here, but it was too small and almost unrecognizable. 

Tiny Maunche was not doing itself any favors here.  

I filled in the space and moved the Mauche to one of the shields of the warriors on the bottom panel.

The Maunche circle is the size of a dime. Also good to know I can still free-hand a Maunche symbol

 

I credit my free Ikea pencil (the one you get to write you item # and bin location) for being the toughest leaded pencil I own to show up nice and dark on the stone.  Both of my nice mechanical pencils failed for hard core editing of sketches in the rough sections.

I asked for and received permission from TRM to sign for them.  It turned out to be a good thing too, because the only space really left was the most uneven and terrible spot let on the whole stone (bottom right corner).  My pics were taken before I had received permission to sign for them, hence the lack of signatures.

Painting was done with one of my "loaner" size 0 round brushes, TRM signature (not shown) and credits on back were done with a 30/0 liner brush.  Yes, you can tell I used to paint a lot of miniatures. :)

Recipient: Thorfinr Hróðgeirsson
Award: Order of the Maunche
Materials: acrylic on slate (Cadmium Red Deep Hue Liquitex)
Words by Vika Grigina z Prahy
Rune translation by Magnus hvalmagi
C&I by me

Finished pic, minus TRM signatures.

Back of stone, credits given to the wordsmith and translator.  I added my artist mark and the date...oh and wrote my name because it's a thing I have been forgetting to do recently.

Maunche - Ulfgeirr

This is a project that almost got got away from me in terms of my artistic "vision" colliding head long with my ability to procrastinate and still maintain a deadline.  Usually I budget a week to do research in what I'd like to base the scroll on, but somehow I had in my head that this had to be awesome.  This is also the first maunche scroll I've done so I think I was a little intimidated subconsciously.  I've actually met Ulfgeirr a few times (while retaining for Edward)  and I have a tremendous respect for his work and craftsmanship.  The award write up was incredibly helpful as well with examples of his work and a few killer youtube videos.

I hemmed and hawed for over two weeks of what I wanted to do for someone with a 9th century viking persona.  I had a ton of great ideas but nothing felt "right" or "appropriate".  I eventually enlisted my super-spy Thyra to try to find out what he might like in a scroll.  Because Thyra obviously knows everyone, she confirmed via his lady wife that Ulgeirr like the Urnes style of artwork used in the later part of the viking period.  Let's just say I did a bunch of research based on that tidbit alone.  ;)

For those not in the know, the Urnes style names for the style depicted on the Urnes stave church (which is an example of the later Urnes style). The church doors have a lovely knotted art style with very stylized animals.  You can see that below.  I'm in the camp of people who think the figure on the left hand side is a wolf because hooray wolves!

Urnes stave church door in Ornes Norway.

Great!  I have a style to go on!  I then got it in my head that it would be awesome with a week and a half left until it was due to try my had at making a runestone carving in a similar style.  I thankfully came to my senses and said hell no, I am not picking up a new hobby right this second for a piece with a firm deadline.  I wasted a good three days trying to figure out the logistics though.

I kept with the idea of doing a runestone with the Urnes style and settled on this lovely example.  The ever talented Anne of Framlingham graciously crafted words and my personal viking superhero Avaldr Valbjarnarson provided the translation into runes.

U240 Lingsberg Runestone, Sweden.

Recipient: Ulfgeirr Ragnarrson (the Nice)

Award: Order of the Maunche

Words: by Anne of Framlingham, translation by Avadlr Valbjarnarson

Specs: Acrylic on slate tile, sealed with W&N matte sealant.

Source: U240 Lingsberg Runestone (see above)

This lovely slate tile was found at Home Depot and it was "the one" due to it's variations of pink and red in the slate.  I opted for my good friend Liquitex Acrylic to get a good coverage on the uneven surface of the slate.  I used an enlarge pic of the runestone and transfer paper to get the proportions correct (and done within my time fram) and ended up freehanding a lot of the design elements since pencil was incredibly hard to see.  Faces and toes were almost entirely tweaked since they didn't transfer well and all managed to get onto uneven surfaces on the tile.

Complete outline of the design done in white.

Choice of two reds,  I went out and bought the one to the left because I thought the one on the right would be too orange.  This is why we test swatch people.  I learned that early on.

Mostly finished base.  All animals are painted and you can see the penciled maunche symbol in the cross if you squint.

Once the base layers were painted, it was crunch time: put the words on the scroll.  I had a fit of shaky hands toward the end but my stubborn streak would not let me put the paintbrush down.  Thyra suggested doing a double ribbon of text inside the snake/dragons as she had done something similar in a runestone scroll.  As Donovan Shinnock (my gracious transporter of the scroll to the event) point out, you can tell I paint miniatures with the tiny handwriting.  I touched up the outlining and sent this scroll on it's merry way.  I'm always going to be my own worst critic, but I do feel like I could have done more for this.  I'm not unhappy with the result, but it left me wanting a tiny bit.

Finished stone with tiny rune writing.

Scroll text by Mistress Anne:

"Hearing I ask from Heimdallr’s sons,
For the worth and might of Ulfgeirr Ragnarrson,
Known to all as a prince of men,
Wielder of counsel, wise in speech.

Brave battle-tree of iron bone-house,
Tames the ravager, bane of wood,
Brings forth battle metal, man’s measure,
And rings to adorn the valiant of Tyr.

Fire-beater acclaimed by all,
Name him among the Sons of Ivaldi.
So says Brennan, Warder of the People,
And so says Caoilfhionn, Willow of Gold.

Done this day in A.S. L, at K&Q A&S Championships, in the Shire of Barren Sands."