Silk painting - Pennsic Vigil tent

This project was 100% Fortune St. Keyne's brain child.  The bulk of the planning, work, sleep deprivation, and effort was done by Fortune and House Strangewayes.  I came along for a few night to help paint and add my special brand of humor to the crew.

Fortune's other works can be found on her blog "Fortune Favors".

By the time I joined the painting party, all the resist work was done so I just "colored inside the lines" as it were.  I helped with the Chivalry, Pelican, and Defense banners along with the Rose window.

Lampwork Glass - Imbedded Opal Class (05May2018)

This was our first level 2 class that pigged backed off the information we learned in the intro pendant making class.  The focus here was learning about encasing opals in glass and using them in pendants.


This followed the same process as making pendants.  The initial pendant glass used this time was a follow borocilicate glass.  The end was sealed then heated so the tube slowly filled up with liquid glass.  The opal was then dropped in carefully and the glass heated and rotated to prevent air bubbles forming in the tip of the pendant.  A contrasting color was added to the back of the pendants to better show off the opal.

This was the handout provided in the class.  It gives a quick background on Gilson opals and describes the embedding process with some neat pictures.

Gilson opals are commercially available at Profound Glassworks (http://www.profoundglass.com/store/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=2) and where the class supply was from.

Lampwork Glass - Pendant Making (21Apr2018)

This intro class was taken at Fiamma Glass again.

This class differed from the bead making in a few different ways.  The glass used here was borosilicate glass (~30 COE) in solid rods.  No mandrels were used this time around.  Glass was manipulated on the rod of origin or using a glass punty (a glass rod used to transfer your work).  Borosilicate or boro glass isn't as "soft" as moretti glass so you don't have to worry as much about gravity until you have a large "glob" of melted glass.  Glass is then flattened by using either a press or by touching the heated glass to a metal plate and pressing down.

To create a two color swirl effect, a blob of a secondary color is added to the main piece (after securing a punty to one end).  The glass is heated and then the punty and main rod are twisted in opposite directions.  To get a tapered effect, heat one end of the glass blob and gently pull both rods apart.

Cold seal - Adding a non-heated end of glass to a hot piece of glass.  This created a brittle, temporary "joint" to manipulate the glass you are working with.  The finished piece can be detahed by hitting the glass sharply at the joint.

Chill-marks - A fingerprint-like impression in the glass caused by touching hot glass to a cold surface such as a press plate.  These can be removed by gently heating the piece.

These were our two pendants created in the class. The leaf shape was done by the stretching process described above and then a leaf impression press was used to get the veining.

Feilinn's pendants:

The light blue glass looks more clear after firing and setting in the kiln.  The "dots" of color in the leaf pendant didn't stretch as much as I had hoped either.


Sergei's pendants:

He had one of his "dots" on the flat pendant break off during firing.  When added raised dots, you use the same process as described in the bead making class but just do a gentle firing to even the dots to nice half circles sitting on the pendant flat.  If the dots are not partially melted on correctly, they can pop off or set oddly when firing.

Lampwork Glass - Bead Class (25Mar2018)

To make a long story short, my husband Sergei got very interested in trying his hand at making lampwork beads.  While he began gathering supplies to "try it out", I took the initiative to find some sort of instructional class where he could try it out before I spent a boat load of time and money on something he liked the concept of.  For his birthday, I got him lessons at a local glass studio.

This is the first part in the multi-part series of posts logging out glass making adventures.  All classes were taken at Fiamma Glass Studio (http://www.fiammaglass.com/) in Waltham, MA with their kick ass staff of teachers and enablers.  These posts will be half recap of what we did and half resource record for my own use.

Glass beads use "soft" glass rods known as Moretti glass (named for a family in Italy) which have a high coefficient of expansion (~104 COE).

Materials:
- bead release
- graphite mandrel
- moretti glass

After a basic instruction on flame safety and two very poignant reminders ( #1 - point hot glass AWAY from you when you put it down and #2 - don't grab the broken ends of glass, grab the middle since it's not sharp), we were away with creating beads.

The mandrel always needs to be turning (either overhand or underhand grip) and is held in your off hand.  It's usually held outside/behind the flame while you head your glass in the hotter part.  Once the glass is hot enough, the rod is turn perpendicular and glass is applied through the flame to the mandrel (which the mandrel turns away from you).  Since the glass is soft, it needs to be constantly turns unless you want gravity to pull the glass blob a certain way on the mandrel. Once you have "enough" glass on your mandrel, you move it away and "cut" it using the flame.  Keep turning the mandrel to even out the bead and use gravity if needed.

Best practice when applying glass to your mandrel is rotate the mandrel away from you so you make a cleaner application and cut.  Otherwise you will end up with a blob of hot glass which will take some time to work into a decent looking bead.

Adding dots

Like adding glass to the mandrel, you instead do a light touch to the already formed bead and pull away (cutting the glass with the flame).  A little glass goes a long way.  Dots can also be layered on top of each other after smoothing in the flame.

Adding lines

Instead of manipulating the glass in your dominant hand, you turn the bead in your non-dominate hand perpendicularly before adding the glass line.  A little goes a long way. Make sure to draw the line down the bead, not up.


Finished beads:

Feilinn's finished beads - 1 solid color, 1 dots, 1 "lines"

Tiny dots were the way to go.

My lines kinda suck and look like terrible "dots".

Sergei's finished beads: 2 solids, 2 dots

Large dots tended to run into each other.

Moretti glass, borosilicate glass, and supplies can be bought at Mountain Glass Arts (http://www.mountainglass.com/).

Award Medallion - Silver Rapier for Eva

I found out less than a week before the event, my Laurel Eva was going to be getting Silver Rapier.  Cue Tuesday morning scribal chat with our plans for the evening....Thyra is going to be working on the scroll for this.  I casually question if there is a medallion lined up.  Long story short (and a quick EK wiki check that there is no Sharc legacy medallion), I have come up with a plan.

I'm still limited on scribal work due to carpal tunnel, but my hands have been much better this week.

The PLAN (tm):
- paint a Silver Rapier on perg
- use spare cabochons to make a medallion
- do some finger loop braiding to make a cord.

Tuesday scribal night had me finish up the painting and co-opting Thyra's cabochans (since my house ate my supply of cabochons) and her working hands for some work with a pair of pliers.  Wednesday and Thursday was finger loop braiding with the aid of my ever patient husband Sergei as we shooed the cats away from the string and watched TV.  He held the cord (and retied silk strings when they untied on me) while I braided

The cord is a blue and white spiral pattern using silk thread (size 10/2).

Medallion is gouache on pergamenata with commercially bought cabochon parts.

Medallion

Finished medallion with cord. Probably the most even braiding I've gotten in a long while.

Silver Rapier - Liadan (backlog)

This scroll ended up being a year in the making...to the day no less.

Originally awarded at the Coronation if Ioannes and Honig, it was finally given out at the Coronation of Brennan III and Caoilfhionn III. Here's some background as to the goings on of this bad boy.

I had heard this scroll went immediately to backlog and was like....seriously? Had I known, I would have done it!  I like Liadan and she's cool people!  Also early period scrolls seem to be my jam.  I should do the thing!  I coordinated with Anastasia da Monte, Liadan's OGR, to see if we could come up with something appropriate.  I asked her if she's like to do some words and between both of our busy summers, real work didn't start until September.  In that time, I solicited source ideas from a variety of people.  Started sketching.  Threw out sketches.  Re-sketched.  Nothing felt right.

Enter Marieta and the gift that keeps on giving - The Lindisfarne Gospel.  Also known as "What to give an early Irish persona when you don't want to do something from the Book of Kells".  The entire manuscript is available as a featured piece on the British Library's online catalog.

I made two solid attempts at the calligraphy (a Carolingian hand which is not correct for this document, but it's what I knew at the time) which both ended is horrible failures where for some reason, my hand gave out on doing anything useful.  It was so bad even my usual optimistic critic said something to the effect of "Oh it's not so....oh...oh yeah. No take a break from this one."  When your support network says walk away, you walk away.

Enter Master Robert - who we asked very nicely to run through the letter forms from the Lindisfarne Gospel at one of the recent Quintavia Scribal Moots.  Robert with his blend of teaching, storytelling, humor, and instigating had the entire room wrapped up in how to hack the forms apart and little tricks to make it look good.  Armed with newfound confidence, I did the thing I've been trying to do (and have had success with other assignments) which was being a "proper" scribe which was using the exemplar for the calligraphy letter forms.

Something to note - I had a minor panic that I had too many words for my 5x7 scroll area and decided to cut some out....only to find out I had too few.  Anastasia's words went right back in, but some creative license was taken to make them work with my panic error.

Long story short (it's complicated and temporary) - I had the calligraphy done and it looked lovely.  I then needed to do the painting and finishing work....with my newly developed carpal tunnel...in both hands.

The top line of capitol letters were painted using Pelikan ink (my ink of choice) after being freehand sketched.  I used a size 30/0 liner and a size 0 brush.

I cheated on the knot work in the center of the "L" and only did the top and bottom knot as well as making them less complicated.  All the lines connected, but I painted over my pencil drawing and had to fake it from scratch with a micron pen.

DOTS FOR DAYS.  They were nerve wracking and I hated them.  In talking to a few other scribes, the toothpick method while good is inferior to the cat whisker method of dot creation.  Given the state of my hands, I wasn't going to even attempt this even if I had found out about it prior to finishing the piece.

All in all this was a success.  I love the "g"'s in this hand (which is a insular hand with tweaks from the source) and it was incredibly worth it for someone who I like and turns out LOVES early period scrolls.

Lesson learned:  Sometimes you need to take a step back to take a few steps forward.

A+.  Would scribe again.

Recipient: Liadan ingean Chineada
Award: Silver Rapier
Words: Anastasia da Monte
Materials: gouache and ink on pergamenata
Source: Lindisfarn Gospel f131r

Scroll next to the exemplar

So...many...dots..

Words:

Let all know that We, Ioannes and Honig, Emporer and Empress of Our Great Eastern Empire, have had brought to Our attention the Handsome presence Liadan Ingean Chineada among Our rapier fighters.

Liadan’s many feats upon the tournament list as well as the melee field inspire Our allies and cause Our foes to tremble in fear. She commands troops and wields her blades with skill and dexterity. In light of these achievements and to the acclaim of those who walk beside her with blades in hand, We cause her to be inducted into Our Order of the Silver Rapier at the occasion of Our Coronation on this First of April Anno Societatas 51 in Our Barony of Dragonship Haven.

Silver Wheel - Fabrisse

[Edit - there was a kerfuffle with delivery to the event and it was delivered only recently/last week]

This was scroll #2 due in a six week period.  Marieta happened to have a lovely blank set aside for "the next time a Silver Wheel gets assigned" and I asked to yoink it for this assignment.

I spent most of my prep time learning the hand that goes with this illumination which is proto-gothic.  My trusty "Calligrapher's Bible" happened to have a decent proto gothic miniscule ductus to base the text off of.  Based off the small snippet of source material I had, it looked to be a pretty close match.   I did find the lack of capital letters for any sort of proto-gothic in my books a little concerning and I'll try to remedy this in the future.

This scroll had a bit of a challenge as the perg was a bit warped due to how wet it got during the illumination process.  After this scroll, I also bought more artist tape so the next time I can properly tame unruly scrolls.

Recipient: Fabrisse of Owlsherst
Award: Order of the Silver Wheel
Illumination and gilding: Marieta Charay
Words: by me, but inspired by the great Alys Mackyntoich and her amazing blog series for more period sounding scrolls.
Hand: proto gothic miniscule

Not sure if you can see the warp, but I obviously needed more tape.

Finished scroll.  Cleaned up some calligraphy and added a face to the illumination.