E&T Backdrop - Part 2

Hooray!  After a week or working a few hours a night, the top was complete!!!  The middle had a big yellow sun added and Anton mentioned that he was going on a business trip.

And then the second canvas drop cloth came out.

Turns out, we were doing the other half of the illumination.  The idea was to do the trees and grass and then Edward and Thyra sitting on their thrones would be the focal point of the "picture" we were creating.

Oooookay......

Time to break out the big guns.  Clarice got a bunch of people to help paint trees on that Sunday (among them Darerca and her family).  By Monday and Tuesday, we enlisted Simona, Caitriona, and Mathias to pretend to be Bob Ross and paint some happy little trees (and some big swaths of grass).

Paints for this were samples from Lowe's (same as the calendar half).  We used a bit of poetic license to make the trees doable and give them some definition.  Still more to come....

E&T Backdrop - Part 1

This next project can only be described as "epic".  So very epic, it's being broken down into multiple posts.

A project was underway for the coronation of Edward III and Thyra II to add some shtick to their elevation.  For their second reign together, the oracles that predicted the end of the world (and the end of their reign) neglected to see that there was a page stuck to the back of their prophecy. This "new" page predicted that they would indeed reign again for thousands and hundreds of ....hours (basically the duration of the normal Eastern reign of six months).

Master Anton has a lovely idea for props and shtick this time based off of the Duc de Berry "Tres Riches Heures" and incorporated the theme of the zodiac to go with the prophecy.

The inspiration for the coronation back drop.

I got a call from Thyra about two weeks before coronation asking me if I'd be willing to do some sketches for the zodiac signs of the reign.  I gleefully said yes, with the caveat that I sucked at drawing people.  Good news - I only had to draw one person (Aquarius).  Sure.  No problem.  We were only going to do the top part of the picture (the zodiac calendar).  Anton was going to handle the calligraphy painting of the months and days of all the royal progress events.  We were after all essentially making an accurate East Kingdom calendar for the reign.

Somehow I convinced Clarice della Luna to give me a hand painting some of the zodiac figures once I had finished the sketching.  I don't think either of us were prepared for what we were really doing.

Please note, Clarice is slightly taller than I am (I'm 5'2").  She's shown below for scale.  All the zodiac symbols were free-handed with pencil.  There are some heavy sketch lines that were erased and painted over.  Some figures were a "choose your adventure" with which guidelines to use.

Pisces was my favorite.

Aquarius mostly didn't suck.

Fat pony!  I mean...Sagittarius. 

Clarice painting Scorpio.

Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius.  The months are also started to be filled in

Yes, that is a canvas drop cloth. And, yes, that is pretty damn large.  More to come.

Tyger's Cub - Cody

This was the first scroll that I attempted to write my own words from a period source (I blame Alys for inspiring me to attempt it).

The scroll got away from me a bit as I had a sudden attack of life right before the deadline which involved multiple trips to the vet with Daenerys.

I am not unhappy with the scroll, but I have a lot of thoughts on how it could have been better.  It is what it is.   The best part about this assignment was actually seeing the recipient get the scroll (small adorable child awkwardly getting an award = adorable).  Lots of smiles were had and I felt a lot better about it.

Scroll Assignment: Tyger's Cub
Recipient: Cody of Endwearde
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Specs: Guache on bristol
Source: Text based on Frederick II Letter to Henry III of England (1229),
Artwork based on "Castle Ramparts with Knightly Pursuits" by Joseph Frenchman. Hebrew bible. Spain (1299-1300)

Things to work on - Outlining, Non-wiggly vertical lines.

Award of Arms - Rozalin

This scroll was my first collaboration with Eva Woderose.

Scroll assignment:Award of Arms
Recipient: Rozalin of Ruantallan
Calligraphy: By Eva Woderose
Words: By Alys Mackyntoich
Specs: Guache on pergamenata
Source: German fencing manual - http://digital.slub-dresden.de/werkansicht/dlf/7522/59/

This is also my first time painting on perg and going through the process of removing my hand oils from the material.  I did the illumination first then handed off the finished (with my half) product to Eva for the calligraphy portion.

The big tweek on this was I tried to make one of the fencers slightly more feminine since the recipient is female and to make it more personal.

I don't have a picture of Eva's lovely calligraphy for this one, but she posted it somewhere.  I'll update this post if I can track it down.

Big take away from this - mixing paint to the right consistency was still kind of an issue.  The perg was very forgiving and kinda fun. :)  This was also attempt #1 on math-ing out all the sizing from the original.  I need more practice with it.

Edit:  Found the completed scroll pic!  I LOVE the "E".

Silver Crescent - Edward

This was my first live scroll and sadly the one that almost made me abandon hope of becoming a scribe in the SCA.  I'm not going to go into the details of the bad, but instead focus on the good on this.  It ended up being a labor of love from four people and was highly personalized to the recipient.  It's still hands down one of my favorite scrolls that I've done.

Constance asked me to do the illumination for Edward Grey of Lochleven's Silver Crescent scroll.  My first reaction was OMG!!!! YEAY!!  I've known Edward since the fall of 2002 when I was in my senior year of college and met him through mutual friends in the Realms LARP.  To me, he was always the ridiculously tall guy who was incredibly kind and incredibly pun-tastic.  Fast forward to my joining the SCA, realizing I know way more people than I thought, joining Lochleven's sister household of Darostur, etc, etc...long story short:  Edward was a dear friend and I was honored to be able to do the illumination on the scroll.

Scroll assignment: Order of the Silver Crescent
Recipient: Edward Grey of Lochleven
Hand: Gothic Littera Bastarda by Constance de St. Denis
Words: Thyra Eiriksdottir, latin translation for the tiny banner by Eva Woderose
Specs: Guache on Bristol
Source: Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, Add MS 49622, f. 193v.  

The illumination is done completely free-hand.  Sketching was done before the calligrpahy and finished all painting afterward.  Thyra and Eva added the personalized banner detail at the bottom.  I changed out the bird detail on the border for Edward's greyhound.

I remembered to take a LOT of progress pictures for this one.

Hound detail.  The circle will become the Silver Crescent drawing.

Snail!

Tiny Edward gets sketched in.

And done!

The big take away for this piece was that I needed to be more consistent when mixing paint which will alleviate brush stroke visibility.  Tiny Edward and the snail are my favorite parts of this piece.  When researching the vague time period his persona is from, this bit of marginalia jumped out at me.
Bonus points if you can read the latin banner! :)

County Coronet

This was part of a project swap with Constance and because I really adore the recipient.

Coronet for Countess Marguerite inghean Lachlainn incorporating her personal heraldry.

This coronet was made from a 1.5 inch veg tan leather strap from Tandy Leathers.  I hand cut the crenelations, hand dyed it, and painted it using Liquitex acrylic paints.  Liquitex is my tried and true paint of choice for painting Knight of the Eternal Flame belts in the Realms larp so I thought it would hold up well here.  It's sealed using NeatLaq matte sealant.

For a personal touch we had Edward cut two leather ties (one white and one black as a personal inside joke) since this was an open back/adjustable coronet.

All in all, I'm very happy with it.

New scribe

So fun story on how I got to be a scribe for the SCA.  Depending on how you look at it it I was either gleefully encouraged or expertly hoodwinked into signing up with the Signet at Market Day at Birka in 2013 during the glorious reign of Edward II and Thyra I.

The first advise given to me:
- You can paint, you're halfway there!
- Let's go shopping for supplies, it's easy.
- Buy this book.
- This is Ygraine, She is awesome.
- Do a backlog first.

It turns out Ygraine is indeed awesome and I bought the Marc Drogon calligraphy book from her.  Constance later took me shopping for paint and helped me contact the Backlog deputy.  

The first scroll I did was an AoA for Avista Mustafa ibn ‘Abdul-‘Aziz. He is a gentleman with a Turkish/Mamluk persona. It was advised that I use Gothic Littera Bastarda for a hand because "it's easy, looks medieval, and is good with any style". Knowing what I know now, I have to politely disagree with all points other than the "looks medieval one." I love the illumination of the horse, but the capital pained me.

Scroll assignment: Award of Arms (backlog)
Recipient: Avista Mustafa ibn ‘Abdul-‘Aziz
Hand: Gothic Littera Bastarda
Specs: Guache on Bristol
Source: (forthcoming)

Note on this scroll - My cat Daenerys jumped on it with wet paws just as I was taking a picture of the finished project. I freaked out out and the calm and wonderful Thyra helped me fix it. You can follow along with the progress pictures below.