Aryanhwy's Calligraphy and Illumination

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Silver Martlet for Katherine of Great Chesterford

I received the assignment 19 August, and picked out an examplar the same day. Two days later, I changed my mind, having seen a British Library blog post featuring Harley MS 7026, f. 13r with the most fantastic little dragon and dragonfly combination. I knew I had to do it!

The sketching, inking, painting, and gilding took about 15 hours over the course of the next three weeks (slightly hampered by attending a conference during one of them; I brought my paints, brushes, and the scroll along thinking I might work on the white-work, but yeah, that didn't happen. So this left me last night with all the calligraphy and all the gilding (the actual putting down of the gold; I'd put the size on the night before) to do. Two hours for the gilding, two hours for the calligraphy made for a late night, but I'm really pleased with the outcome.

The text reads:

Omnibus fidelibus ad quos presentium noticia pervenerit, Alexander et Eularia, principes Insulsenses, in domino salutem.

In ancient days of old our noble ancestors of blessed memory did establish a company of artisans and scientists skilled in all manner of kenning and craft, to which it is our royal right and prerogative to add and augment with all such of our land who have distinguished themselves in like fashion, and one such whose talents with pen and brush brings her reknown throughout the land is Katherine of Great Chesterford. For the advancement of her and the glory of our lands we the aforesaid princes by these presents to create the said Katherine a member of the Order of the Silver Martlet. Actum apud Thamesreach, anno societatis l, datum per manum Arianhwie dicte Bone, xii Septembris ad festum beate nomine. Hic testamur.

The Latin phrases read in translation: "Alexander and Eularia, Insular princes, to all the faithful whose notice may come to these presents, greetings in the lord" and "Acted at Thamesreach, in the year of the society 50, dated by the hand of Aryanhwy called Good, the 12th of September on the feast of the blessed name. Here we witness.

For the last year or so I have been working extensively with Latin charters, in which I have found it is extremely common for the scribe who wrote the charter to be named explicitly, especially in royal or papal charters. I think this is something that we should actively promote in the SCA.

The recipient ended up leaving the event before court due to illness, so the award was pushed off for a later event. I amended the date to reflect this, by adding "confirmamus ix ian", nicely abbreviated.

Here are a variety of images during the process (click for larger versions):

Saturday, August 8, 2015

AoA for Marx Rosenberg

Combat scroll for Marx Rosenberg. With the advent of a new Prince and Princess of ID, there were a few awards that needed scrolls on the day. I volunteered to help out Ari Mala, and she brought her big folder of blanks around for me to dig through. Lo and behold, what did I find? One I'd done myself. I figured it was appropriate to end up doing the calligraphy on it!

It's been nearly a year since I've done any scribing, which means I didn't get quite the right combination of nib size and line size, meaning I had much less space for writing than expected. I would've loved to have put the full blazon in, since Marx had arms registered already, but instead decided to paint in his arms and then refer to them. Drawing the arms was a bit of a revelation, in that I did it entirely freehand (albeit with the image up on my phone so I had something to look at while drawing.) Years ago, I would never have believed anyone who told me someday I'd be able to draw freehand. I'm quite happy with how the arms came out.

The text reads:

We, Alexandre and Eularia, prince and princess of Insula Draconis, to our right-trusty and well-beloved servant Marx Rosenberg, greetings. Know that in consequence of the many good reports we have received, we by our royal right do award you full rights to the arms depicted plainly below. Dat. viij aug. a.s. xxxxx.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Panache for Paul O Briain

This was a long-overdue backlog scroll. During our stepping down court, Paul and I wanted to make a real Renaissance man -- brewer, fletcher, illuminator, archer, fencer, and more -- a member of the Order of Panache. I wanted an especially neat scroll for him, in recognition of this, so I asked Herrin Appollonia Grunenzweig if she could do a Catherine of Cleves-style archery-themed blank for me.

Unfortunately, the blank didn't reach me before the event, and it has then sat and mouldered through two international moves, two new jobs, and not enough free time, until I finally said this is it, I'm going to finish the scroll up in time for Crown Tourney -- which happened to be Crown Tourney 3 years after the one that we won, at the same site.

I only got the one picture, and I composed the text on the fly so I don't have a transcription of it (yet); I will hopefully have time to sit down some time and reconstruct one.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Lindquistringes for Arianhwy Wen

I have been waiting to do this scroll for ages, and had the exemplar picked out for nearly as long (the exemplar is Oxford Bodleian MS Auct. D.4.6., fol. 91r). When I got the assignment Nov. 3, I had to get work right away -- sketched out the initial and put in the words. :) Nov. 14 (I think?) I painted in the frame of the letter and the green flourishes on the left. Nov. 17 I finished painting the inside flourishes. Then, the fun of drawing out the lines, which I did Nov. 18.

I composed the text that evening, and it reads:

Domina Arianuia Alba quae dicitur Gemina Mala, scriptrix, sag ittaria, callida doctaque, serviens Drachenwaldensis est autem hinc ordonis anuli lindquisti. Fit manibus Leifi regis et Morriganae reginae xxix novembris xlix.

In translation, this is:

Lady Arianhwy Wen who is called the Evil Twin, scribe, archer, cunning and learned, servant of Drachenwald is moreover henceforth of the Order of the Lindquistringe. Done by the hands of Leif king and Morrigan queen, 29 November 49.

I left it at that as I wasn't sure what to write for the subtext yet; I didn't want to merely translate. I wrote the subtext on Nov. 21, and was extremely pleased with the end result. I hope she likes it, for it was made with lots of love and affection.

Here's a close-up of the initial:

AoA for Thora Greylock

I chose the initial, Codex Gottwicensis 30 (2), f. 206v, on Nov. 1. The design was influenced by other folios in the same codex, specifically f. 204v, f. 235v, and f. 85v. I started sketching things out the same day, and finished the lining on the next.

I waited awhile uncertain what color to do the silver/grey bits in -- silver leaf? (don't have any.) cerulean? (don't have any; and what I found on line just didn't look right). ultramarine? (it would work as a color combo with gold and vermillion, but wouldn't really match the exemplar). And then Nov. 4 I found this grey/blue that I'd mixed for another scroll, and decided it was a good choice, and painted in the "N". After finding my gold size (hurrah!) on Nov. 8, I put down the first layer on Nov. 9. The next few days were busy with birthday celebrations for one important now-3-year-old, but on Nov. 12 I got out the gold. Shiny! Even more shinier Nov. 13, after I cleaned up the gilding and painted in the red. Nov. 20 I did the calligraphy. I think I picked the wrong nib. There was not enoug white space.

The text was composed while writing, and reads:

Nasr and Eleanor prince and princess of insula draconis to all those seeing, reading, or hearing these words shall likewise know our will. Thora greylock has, for all her contributions as archer, scientist, and artisan, for all her enthusiasm and inspiration, made our lands better. We for our part better her by awarding her all rights to her arms. Witness ourselves at coronet tournament xxix november xlix.

Nov. 21 was finish-up day: I did the red punctuation and the two smaller initials.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

AoA for Alays de Lunel

The exemplar is Codex Plagensis 127 (454 b. 49), f. 47v, and I picked it Nov. 1. Not having the right paints to work on Thora's, I spent the evening of Nov. 3 sketching out the initial, and painting in crimson in the initial. Nov. 4, I painted the seafoam; it wasn't quite as green as I would've liked, but I had this paint already mixed and I wasn't confident I could mix the shade I wanted. Nov. 6 I mixed up some ultramarine + white to get that bright popping blue, and painted in the rest of the letter. Nov. 8 I found my gold size (yay!), so Nov. 9 I painted in the white dots and put down the size for the gilding. Nov. 12 I had a brief panic where I couldn't find my gold, but it was short-lived, and I was able to do all the gilding that evening (minus the cleaning up bits...that's for another night.) On Nov. 13 I cleaned everything up, and then realized I'd forgotten to pencil in the lines, so that was next. Nov. 19 I inked in the lines and all the detials on the initial. Really pleased with how this turned out!

The text was calligraphed the same night and reads:

All gentles seeing, hearing, reading these words shall hereby likewise know the will of the right radiant princes of Insula Draconis Nasr and Eleanor who by common report and the testimony of many trusted nobles are truly advertised and informed of the deeds and doings of our subject Alays de Lunel who by these words is proclaimed a lady of our court. xxix nov xlix.

I should've used a smaller nib. There isn't enough white space.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Dragon's Pride for Edith of London

The exemplar is BL MS Harley 3049, fol. 30v:

BL MS Harley 3049

I'd started working on this on Feb. 15, for the Gulf Wars gift basket, and eventually decided to not include it, but instead do it with gold leaf and save it for a Drachenwald scroll. I saw Edith's amazing embroidery a few weeks later and decided then to write a recommendation for her and ask to do the scroll. Unfortunately, I then found out she wasn't going to be at the event originally planned, and TRM decided to give it out at an earlier one -- 10 days way. Due to other commitments the next evening, I didn't get this started until Mar. 28, one week before the event. I got the borders partly sketched and then drew most of the text lines, and then realized that I needed to test the text.

Because English is the recipient's third (I think) language, I wanted to go with a language she was more comfortable with, which would be German. The German text was written for me by Herrin Margaretha von Rückingen, and I paired it with a Latin intro, so that the entire thing reads:

Incipit verbis Prothelai et Cecilie, regum Drachenwaldenses.

Sie hat sich mit großem Interesse, Hingabe und Eifer in dem Bereich der Kunst und Wissenschaft unseres König reiches gewidmet. Ihre Geduld und ihre Durchhaltevermögen erfüllt uns mit Stolz. Deswegen möchten wir, Prothall und Cecilia, König und Königin von Drachenwald, voller Stolz unser Mitglied Edith of London in den Orden des Dragon's Pride aufnehmen, auf das sie das Abzeichen des Ordens immer tragen kann.

Ausgehändigt am v April im Jahre 48 in Polderslot während Crown Tourney.

But because I didn't write the text I didn't really have a sense of how much space it would take, and I had the suspicion that my base design was too big. I sketched out the text, something I very rarely do any more, and realized I was right. So I took in the left-hand margin, so I'd have space for more fancy flourishes, and resketched the initial. At that point, it was then bed time. Mar. 29 I sat down as soon as Gwen went down for a nap and managed to get all the text calligraphed, since I had to do that before the illumination (not my usual order), so I could know how much to shift up the lower margin if necessary (Some, but not too much). Then the very careful erasing of the text lines, followed by painting the blue of the initial and the blue, red, and purple decorations in the text. And then Gwen woke. On Mar. 30, I painted the blue in the border, and on Mar. 31 I lay down the size for the gilding of the inner most border.

Apr. 1, I gilded all that I had put down size for the night before, albeit in a rather messy fashion. I've decided I don't like the gold leaf I got in München as much as I like the gold leaf I got from Ari Mala, which sticks to the waxed paper better. But, it at least all gilded, all I needed to do was clean up lots of floater bits, which always makes me feel wasteful, but, hey, someday I'll have a completely gilded desk as a result. I still need to put down the size for the other bits of gilding, and then gild it, and then do all the penwork decorating, so the chances of this being done by Thursday night are low, but it'll be done enough to have something shiny to show off, and I'll take it home and finish it and then will be able to enter it in the next baronial A&S competition at Arts in April. :) Apr. 2, I try to clean up the gilding that I'd done the previous night. It did not go as well as desired, so I was reluctant to put down any more size.

There was then a long gap, as I pondered how best to continue. Finally, on Aug. 22, I sketched out in pencil where the remainder of the size should go, and then put down the size, along with some more size over the bits that hadn't taken well the first time. On Aug. 24 during Gwen's nap I put down the gold, and then cleaned up the edges, making it clear the places where I'd need to go back and put down another coat. Still, it mostly worked, better than I would've expected. The next night I touched up the last bits of the gold, and began doing the exterior rubrication. I completed the external decorations on Aug. 26. I'm still finding that I'm not as good at translating these sorts of designs from image to page as I think I will be; nevertheless, divorced from the exemplar, this is quite lovely, I think, even if I had a bugger of a time with the paint beading in some places -- a problem I rarely have.