Ottonian Award of Arms for Andreas von Wittelsbock Sunday, Apr 13 2008

Click for larger images.

So, this is my second SCA award scroll, an Award of Arms for Lord Andreas von Wittelsbock of the Barony of Dragonsspine (my former barony). It’s based on a page from the Trier Gospels (late 10th century German, according to the book I had, but possibly earlier? And the image I used as reference doesn’t look like the Trier Gospel images I’m finding online…). I’m still struggling with the gold-on-purple, so I did regular calligraphy for this one (and I think it’s better spaced, but more wobbly and inconsistent). I’m happy with the composition of the illumination, and my color choices, not so much with my lousy planning on the test layout. The zoomorphic B is a direct copy, except I simplified the tongue a lot to save my sanity (it was late). The original knotwork tongue fills the majority of the letter and makes me cross-eyed. The E is also a direct copy. The border is simplified. Overall, I think it’s a vast improvement over my first scroll, and I’m pretty happy with it. I hope the recipient is as well!

Paints Used:

M. Graham gouache: Pyrrol Red, Viridian, Titanium White, Ivory Black
Winsor & Newton watercolor: French Ultramarine (Green Shade) — this is, as far as I can tell, pretty indistinguishable from the usually more violet ultramarine, which kind of annoys me. So far, I’m pretty disappointed with most of the W&N products I’ve tried.
Holbein watercolor: Indian Red
Jacquard PearlEx: Brilliant Gold

Colors Used:
Green: Viridian + Titanium White
Blue: French Ultramarine + Titanium White
Red: Pyrrol Red + Indian Red
Gray: Ivory Black + Titanium White
White, Gold: unmixed

Paper: Canon cold-press watercolor paper (not up to trying to cut my big sheet of Arches hot-press yet)

I think my plans at this point are to exactly copy manuscript pages, mimicking the letter spacing, until my calligraphy starts looking “right” to me, and to find the perfect outlining brush. My outlining is better, but still not as tidy as I want.

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Ottonian scroll #2! Saturday, Apr 12 2008

I finished my second AoA scroll, for a specific person I haven’t met. It’s also Ottonian, and while I wasn’t able to figure out what I really wanted to do, it’s more complicated than the last one and I’m pretty happy with it (aside from the fact that I had Poor Planning on the text and I’m crossing my fingers it’ll be approved with such abbreviated text and the Royal signatures at the top instead of the bottom…if not, I’ll redo it). I did better with my color choice this time, although my outlines still need serious work (I think I just haven’t found the perfect brush for outlines yet–it has to carry sufficient paint but not too much, and have a fine point).

I shall post a picture later, after it has been awarded. Photos in bright sunlight are definitely better than scans or color copies, wow. Good thing I live in Colorado.

On other projects, I found an amazing gold and red chenille remnant and I’m working on a kirtle (fronted with Martha Stewart tableclothes I’ve been hoarding forever, haha) and loose gown. It is so. freaking. pretty. And I love loose gowns, because they are comfy, look fine without a corset, and are not fitted much and are thus less stressful to make. Sasha fitted me for a doublet and bodice pattern, and now I need to make a boned kirtle and then go from there.

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Ottonian doodles Sunday, Mar 30 2008

I have been working on an approximation of the Ottonian gold-on-purple calligraphy. The originals were on murex-dyed vellum (or, in some cases, vellum dyed with cheaper dyes) in shell gold. As I cannot afford murex and don’t want to work with shell gold yet, I’m trying to come up with substitutes. Ideally, I want the purple to be semi-transparent and slightly streaky, but not extremely streaky. I think this should be possible with watercolors, but I’m not very good with watercolors, as this doodle shows.

This doodle is on purple watercolor (which came out way too streaky) with an acrylic gold calligraphy ink. Previously I tried W&N drawing ink (MASSIVE FAIL), thinned gold W&N gouache (fail), and PearlEx mixed with gum arabic and water (better than the others, but didn’t work well). Anyway, the acrylic calligraphy ink worked okay, but unfortunately, it has a brown base and the gold isn’t very bright, so the contrast with the background isn’t very good.

I’m still trying to get the hang of metallic calligraphy. The examples of Ottonian gold-on-purple calligraphy I’ve seen in books definitely aren’t as crisp as regular black calligraphy; I think it’s an inevitable byproduct of the metallic powder. But I think I’m going to try thinning some yellow gouache and mixing in PearlEx for a brighter gold and see if that works as ink. I’m also going to use a more reddish purple (one of the pieces I like is more of a purpleish red), and use quinacridone red gouache and a touch of the indanthrene blue watercolor, so it’ll be very slightly transparent, but not as wet or streaky as the watercolor. Hopefully that will work! I really want to figure out this technique.

The borders are just different experiments based on a few different examples. I’m happy with parts of them but not others, and of course I’d be more careful about my lines on an actual scroll. I think more whitework would definitely improve them. I’m not sure I like the wide border on the left–the multibanded border on the top looks more interesting to me.

The colors are pretty far off the original–anyway, the greens are viridian- and sap green-based (viridian is a pain to work with! I think I’d rather use phathalo green), the red is pyrrol red (too bright and not orange enough–also covers badly, so I think I need to use a different red for outlining, although I might be able to mix it with one of the red earth oxides), the blue is ultramarine (it scanned BADLY), purple is indanthrene blue + quinacridone red, gold is PearlEx Brilliant Gold. I wish I could figure out how to correct the colors better, but oh well. I should probably just take photos in natural light.

Anyway, I think I’ve got an idea of where to go with this next, which was the point of the exercise.

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Calligraphy and illumination class! Monday, Mar 10 2008

I’m going to take a calligraphy and illumination class in May, which I expect to be fun. Here’s the class description:

Celtic And Historical Calligraphy

During this course you will learn the skills of the masters of European Calligraphy. We’ll cover historical inking colours, their origins and how they are made. Parchments and vellums, various papers, quill types, quill cutting, scripting tables, layout geometry, and related themes will be demonstrated and discussed. Period scripting and styles, including Celtic, Ottonian, Renaissance, and others, will be explained and illustrated. Skill in scripting, design, illustration, and illumination is used in historical reproduction work as well as modern art. The information presented will surprise modern digital graphic ad layout artists, enhancing their knowledge and depth in their own professional fields. Please bring $10 to class for materials.

It’s a two-day workshop taught by Dan Cheatham II, who’s clearly trying to spin it to appeal to modern graphic artists, but his real interests are historical. So more practice making period paints, AND he has genuine lapis and malachite to play with, which will be exciting since there is no freaking way I’m going to buy lapis to grind up myself at the current prices. So this may be my chance to find out how genuine lapis looks and handles differently from synthetic ultramarine.

Dan also teaches a longbow making class, which would really tempt me if I liked shooting longbows, which I don’t. But I am tempted by the leatherwork class, since several people have suggested tooling as an alternative to stamping for the Gothic-lettered motto belts I want to make from Dress Accessories, and Melchior and his boss don’t do tooling at work on account of things like profit margins. So getting some instruction in that might be a good idea. I’ll have to see how finances and time go.

There’s a baronial corset workshop coming up, so I need to do a mockup fitted as far as I can get without help on the modified Dorothea bodies.

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My first award scroll Sunday, Mar 9 2008

(click for larger image)

I finished my first award scroll for the blank scroll competition at Outlands Crown this weekend (Lady Lucrezia took it for me). It’s based loosely on the Gregori Moralium, a 10th-11th century Ottonian manuscript, and I’m not exactly pleased with it–it was my first attempt and has loads of problems, both in terms of historical accuracy and technique (my Carolingian spacing in particular needs lots of work!), but I learned a lot. You can also tell that I became much steadier with my brush about halfway through–all the outlining on the illumination is done with a brush, including the really fine lines around the text decorations. The outlining on the initial U was a lot messier before I went over it again, which is why that outlining is so broad. This was also the first time I used a dip pen, and while it’s much easier than a cartridge pen, you can definitely tell I wasn’t quite used to it.

I really like Ottonian stuff, though, and since Carolingian is the only hand I’ve tried that doesn’t make me want to give up in frustration, I think I’ll stick with this style for now. I’d really like to try the gold-on-purple, and some of the zoomorphic animal initials. I might also see if anyone needs Russian or Arabic scrolls, since I’m fairly sure I could do those after refreshing my Arabic alphabet. I’m hoping to do some non-blank scrolls, though….

Full documentation (written in an afternoon and not really up to my usual citation standards) can be downloaded here: Documentation for Ottonian blank AoA (PDF).

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