Sketch time - Tyger courant

A call went out on FB and G+ in November 2015 for a line drawing for a "tyger courant" which would be used for the badge for the Golden Lance, a new (in the East) Order of High Merit for equestrians.

I said I'd take a stab at it and spent a bit of time fiddling.  I did a general trace of the East Kingdom populace badge and then freehand/tweaked the entire thing to make it less "meh"... oh and of course move the legs into a courant or running/leaping pose.

Heraldic tygers are weird creatures.  Between the beak, puffy fur, and weird toes, I fought with myself for a bit on what looked "right" for it.  The finished product was outlines in a back micron pen and emailed away.

Embroidered Rose -Caoilfhionn's Rose Cloak

At Pennsic I was convinced to go to an Athena's Thimble guild meeting and panel a counted cross stitch Tyger's Cub I was working on.  I've done cross stitch since I was young so it wasn't a huge deal for me.  My first "official" project was handed to me while a bunch of people were over my place watching football.  It was to embroider a rose for a small cloak for Princess Caoilfhionn's (soon to be Queen Caoilfhionn II) at coronation.

Once I got over the "I'm making something for the queeeeeeeeeeeen" panic, I sat down and did it.  It's very simple and took inspiration from Anastasia de Monte's embroidered rose for the same cloak with keeping it simple.  I learned the reverse chain stitch for this and learned "back stitch" was actually the right name for my straight lines.

The tiny arrow points to my rose.

The finished cloak with all roses attached.

Award of Arms - Ciar

Recipient: Ciar of Skye
Award: Award of Arms
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Specs: guache on bristol
Source: Lindisfarne Gospels, 10th C

Tyger's Cub - Arya

I love the Tyger's Cub award.  Plain and simple it is one of the best we give out in the kingdom.

I did something to my right hand/wrist, LARPed, and then irritated my wrist to the point where I needed to use a brace for a bit.  I did a bulk of the calligraphy pre-brace.  Doing the calligraphy and illumination completely fatigued me and it took a lot longer than I thought to finish it up.  I also somehow could not find my exemplars of carolingian miniscule or my copy of Drogan.  I ended up doing the calligraphy in a chancery hand instead.  Because of the time crunch and fatiguing issues with my wrist, I recycled a source.

The only downside with this scroll is the quality of the photo makes it so you can't see the bit of whitework/detailing.

Recipient: Arya the Braider
Award: Tyger's Cub
Hand: Chancery
Words: Alys Mackyntoich
Specs: guache on bristol
Source: Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, Add MS 49622

Seamstress to the Crown - Sandrine

I remember when I got this assignment (due Sept 26th, 2015) I was incredibly busy.  I churned out this tiny scroll in a few hours while taking a break from sewing and trying to keep my head on straight.  C&I along with words by me.  It's a tiny 4x4 inch scroll.

Recipient: Sandrine de Berry
Award: Seamstress to the Crown
Hand: caroligian miniscule
Specs: guache on pergamentata
Source: (will provide later, found by Thyra)

Award of Arms - Coilean

And then there was this time that I loudly proclaimed in front of all of Darostur that I will never work on a scroll at Pennsic ever again!  Mark your calendars.  That was August 2015.  I'm waiting to eat my words this year...

I foolishly though I would have enough time before Pennsic to have this done well in advance to enjoy our annual pre-Pennsic birthday excursion without deadlines.  Boy was I wrong!  I know.  Shock and surprise.

My birthday usually falls during the first week of Pennsic, so I take the few days off from work to extend my vacation time.  My husband and I take our time getting to Pennsylvania and try to do something fun and relaxing.  I completely slacked off and had an amazing birthday filled with wine tours, great food, and adventure in upstate New York.  This also meant I was behind on my scroll because I didn't get much done before leaving for the trip to begin with.

I finished the calligraphy and base illumination in a day sitting at a KoA cabin starting at my phone for the source material (because I'm a cool kid and forgot to pack my printout of the page).  I finished up the scroll one lovely evening in Darostur's camp with Thyra and Marieta (who were also finishing up their scrolls) and managed to drop them off the day before they were to go out.  Success!!

Recipient: Coilean O'Rein
Award: Award of Arms
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Words: Alys Mackyntoich
Specs: guache on bristol
Source: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=23677

Award of Arms - Lisabetta

This next AoA had a lot of new things going on that I was kind of excited about.  New calligraphy hand, new style, and gold painted capital letters!  That might not sound interesting or hard, but for me it was completely out of the box and a bit scary.

The biggest challenge for me wasn't the usual debate of "oh my good too many things I want to draw and paint!" but rather "how is this lady's name actually registered and spelled????".  The award write up and contact person had two different ways of spelling her name.  I did some digging on OSCAR and found a third way of spelling it!  Well crud.  Some more digging through the award write up mentioned that she was autocratting the event in which she was getting her AoA and thank god it had her SCA name written out!  And it matched the OSCAR entry!!! :D

This is also the first scroll I worked on since going to KWHSS in Toronto.  The class Marieta and I attended Sunday morning mainly talked about shading techniques so it was fresh in my mind when I went to work on the pearls for the artwork.

Late period Italian manuscripts are lovely with their simplicity and elegance.  Everything was free hand drawn and fiddled with during the final painting.  The biggest change for me in terms of style was in using this source material, the text has an "airy" quality achieved by skipping extra lines.  As you can see below, I did the gold work on the name last and missed which line to write on.  Oh well. I think it still looks nice.

Recipient: Lisabetta vedova di Alessandro
Award: Award of Arms
Hand: Humanist bookhand
Words: Eva Woderose
Specs: Guache on bristol
Source: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=6432&CollID=58&NStart=29