Illustrations of Ana Mardoll's No Man of Woman Born

I recently read and reviewed a collection of short stories by Ana Mardoll, No Man of Woman Born. They were excellent; my only two complaints were there weren't enough (over way too soon!) and there weren't any pictures (which would improve the readability of the stories if I wanted to read them to my 6yo daughter). Regarding the former, I hope xie will write more stories, and regarding the former, I figured the thing to do was the illustrate them myself. This is my first attempt at moving beyond strictly medieval imagery, though I couldn't bring myself to go too far!, and my first time not working very closely from exemplars. Nevertheless, many bits and pieces were inspired by various actual manuscripts:

	The fish in "Tangled Nets" were inspired by the fish in BL MS Additional 30024 f. 64v. Faces are damn hard, and Wren's face is modeled after the faces in the initial in BL MS Egerton 1151 f. 50.
	The castle in "King's Favor" is based on the castle Reynard takes refuge in in BL MS Additional 15229 f. 77v. The fence is modeled after a fence I did for another project.
	I had so much fun looking up tents for "His Father's Son". In the end, I went with the ones in BL MS Royal 20 D I f. 15v, though the tents I first intended to use were the ones from BL MS Royal 10 E IV. I still cribbed from that MS (f. 239) for the two people.
	The design for "Daughter of Kings" was a first for me: Entirely my own. I didn't copy any of it from anywhere.
	It was hard to choose a castle for "Early to Rise", but the castle in BL MS Royal 14 E III f. 21 provided an excellent exemplar.
	Just as much fun as looking for tents was looking up images of students and teachers for "No Man of Woman Born". I ended up using the ones from BL MS Royal 6 E VI f. 531, with the dog cheekily stolen from BL MS Harley 3745 f. 1.
	For "The Wish-Giver" I used my favorite dragon, from BL MS Additional 14761 f. 31v, and then went to BL MS Royal 10 E IV (quickly becoming one of my new favorite MSs) to find a nice figure. The one I used as my exemplar is from f. 102, and alas this was the one that showed up just how hard human figures are (especially hair. Who would've thought hair was so tricky?!)

I started the project August 19, 2018, and finished it on the 26th. I did one picture per evening (except Saturday). Each painting took about 2 hours from start to finish, including trawling through the manuscripts to find my exemplar images.

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© 2018, Sara L. Uckelman.

Fox for Alexander of Long Riston

This was a combat scribal assignment done on a blank by Lady Haesel of Berneslai.

The text was written by Ari Mala and reads:

Lett it bee known bi theis our roial presents that we Robert and Delia princes insular knawing nat onnle by common repert but or one sarteyn knowlich of the fersomenis of Alexander of Long Riston upon the feild of battil bothe in myghte and musik with hertis ful gladd do hereby him rais to fellishippe of or right nobil and puisant order of þe fox. Dat. vij august a.s. liij.

Mala also did the lining, at which point I then offered to do the calligraphy. I probably would've lined it smaller, because -- as the calligraphy clearly shows -- I don't upscale well. The other alternative, which I only considered after it was too late, was that I should've swapped the lines for writing and the lines for spaces. I think that would've made it look better.

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© 2018, Sara L. Uckelman.

Two Blanks by Elsabelle

This two blanks were done by my 6yo daughter, Elsabelle Makeblisse. The initial I was modelled after BL MS Burney 11 f. 57v. I sketched the design, and inked some of it; Elsabelle inked the rest, and painted the rest, including helping make decisions about the colors to use, since some of the colors were not immediately obvious/clear in the original image. The initial G was based on Harley 1662 f. 37v. In this, Elsabelle did more of the sketching than in previous ones, doing the bands on the upright and the central floral design.

These two were entered into the Protector's A&S competition at Raglan 2018. Competition entries were supposed to address two questions. Below I reproduce her answers to the questions:

What did you find hard? (On the "G") "The scales on the fish. And I tried the swirl on the eye and it was kind of hard, but I tried it, and there was someone to help me there, so I did it." (On the "I") "On this one, I found it difficult to draw the eyes on the sea monsters, but I looked at the picture really really really carefully, and then I tried to copy it and I did my best."

How did you learn to do it? "I learned by practicing. And there was someone to teach me how to do it. For the dots, you just go up and down, you don't hold the paintbrush like you're drawing, just go straight up and down."

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© 2018, G. R. Uckelman.

Blank I

G and I wanted to do some blanks before Raglan; this was mine. It is based on BL MS Arundel 271 f. 14v. It took me two days to do, given that I was also helping G with hers.

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© 2018, Sara L. Uckelman.

Wedding card for Helen and Guy

Last week two friends got married, and as I was going to be seeing both of them at a workshop on Monday, I decided to do them a little wedding present. Finding images of weddings in medieval manuscripts is easy -- not only are there depictions of a lot of royal weddings and weddings from myth and story, there's also the wedding at Cana.

The basic design I adapted from British Library MS Arundel 157 f. 6v:

But I took the floor and trestle table from British Library MS Harley 4431 f. 122v so that I could make use of the "pet sitting on the lady's feet" and incorporate Helen's fantastic cat Lorenzo:

I adapted the cat from British Library MS Harley 928 f. 44v; cat faces are tricky, and the fact that this one was smudged didn't help me:

Finally, I took the tripartite background from British Library MS Royal 10 E IV f. 229v:

And here's some of the in-process images:

Sketching it out.

Outlining.

It's like drawing your own coloring book and then coloring it in.

More painting.

All the base coats done, and the size down for the gilding.

Before gilding and re-inking.

After gilding and re-inking.

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© 2018, Sara L. Uckelman.

Illuminated border

This was my daughter Elsabelle's first attempt at illumination. Our inspiration was BL MS Royal 20 A IV ff. 2v-3. I drew (most of) the design and inked (most of) it (she drew a few roses herself and did some inking herself), and then she painted and gilded all the rest. I did a bit of touching up on the inking afterwards, but only a very small bit.

The entire project took two days, 3-4 hours per day.

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© 2018, G. R. Uckelman.

Silver Martlet for Alexandre d'Avignon

The text is adapted from the Letters Patent to Sir Humfrey Gylberte June 11, 1578 and reads:

Iannick and Alana by right of arms prince and princess of Insulae Draconis to all people to whom these presents shall come, greetings. Know ye that of oure especial grace and certayn science and mere motion, we have given and granted and by these presents for us and our heires do give and grant to oure trusty and well-beloved cousin Alexandre d'Avignon, viscount and thrice master, free liberty and full license to style himself henceforth and in all places and for all purposes as a member of the most honourable Order of the Silver Martlet. And the same master to have and to hold and to occupy for his enjoyment all rights, privileges, and responsibilities appertaining thereto, including the right to bear the badge of the Order without let or hindrance from anyone in accordance with both law and ancient custom.

And so that none shall contest this our solemn will we the above-named princes have signed and dated these presents below.

(It's a terrible quality image because I scanned it rather than photographed it.)

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© 2017, Sara L. Uckelman.