This particular scroll was a combination of traditional inserted into a non-traditional format. It was also a collaboration with others to offer this award to our Baron and Baroness as they stepped down and were given court baronages.
LAYERS, depths of devotion, effort, meaning….working from back to front:
Windmasters’ Kittyhawk, with a map of the Cantons superimposed on his body, as the heart and soul of the Barony.Gouache colors…Waves…based on beadwork by Baroness Isabeau de Valle that was to go on their court coronets; I created 3 layers of these waves to honor Atlantia.Within the waves, are two black hammerhead sharks (part of the Baron’s arms), and posed between them the award, a baronial crown, of gesso with white and yellow gold leaf and gouache for the stones. These hammerheads were also used on their coronets which were made by Goodwife Michel Almond de Champagne.The inscription, penned over an inked sea orm from Magnus’ Carta Marina of 1539.The exemplar.Dogwood flowerRepaired damageMaking sure it fitThe Baroness’s favorite flower is the dogwood, and it made a beautiful frame for the shadow box in addition to personalizing it for her. Aside from a bit of a water CATastrophy, the framing went well!
The biggest challenge was to make sure everything fit within the flower frame, that enough of the Kittyhawk was visible, the script was visible and the sharks were prominently displayed. Next came the layers…all well and good to create them, but they had to be separated.
Measurement check for layers.
I mounted each layer to foam board, separating some more than others with spacers. Then the entire shadow box was illuminated with LED lights that were battery operated. The switches were attached to the bottom of the frame to enable the viewer to turn them on/off and change out the batteries.
This scroll was created for a very dear friend, who had asked me, should he achieve this level, to make his scroll. I had never been asked before, and this conversation took place about a year or so ago. We discussed his wish for a traditional scroll, preference of colors, and really, not much more.
I was contacted by his mentor a few months prior to this award and asked to create his scroll. By now, most should be aware of my love for personalized scrolls as well as my obsession with the Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta
I chose this page because of its beautiful hand by George Bocskay, the Secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I. These hands were written between 1561 and 1562. (The illumination is by Joris Hoefnagel, about 30 years later.
While the hand has quite a few letters, I realized that a few that I would need were missing. I copied out the letters that were present, and then used them to (hopefully) extrapolate what the missing letters would look like and make sure that they would fit in. I also wished to be as true to spacing as my scroll would allow.
Extrapolation page, spacing page, and scroll in progress.
Next, personalizing this for him. I was aided and abetted by his amazing wife. She requested to have some of his music, to work in his two household affiliations, his lute, and his Pearl for Brewing, but most importantly to include their sweet boy Morgan.
Beloved pets are….hard. If you don’t paint them well, then your attempt at personalization is for naught. I do not have an art background, I have not taken modern classes (but hope to someday), and having a black lab to paint and not make into just a blob was intimidating especially as he and Ciaran’s lute were to be most of the visual focus of the piece .
The raised gold music on either side is a song written by Ciaran himself, called The Path. The left side is the beginning of the song, a symbolic start to his journey. The left side is the end of the song as his path has lead him to this moment. The lines of music intentionally meander, unevenly, with ups and downs, much like a journey.
Each paragraph has a gold musical notation used as the decorated capital letter.
The treble (or G) clef, centered on the line for the note “G”, used for the word “Greetings “The C clef, used for the word “Call” And the Bass Clef, centered on the line for “F”; used for the word “Further”.A close up of the illumination. Done as realism/squashed bug, Morgan is front and center, holding Ciaran’s favorite musical piece in his mouth, surrounded by Ciaran’s lute, his mini-cask that was his Order of the Pearl, his oldest household emblem on a beer mug, his other household represented as a tag on Morgan’s collar. His banner is held by a pole with two bone-shaped finials, and I used a Celtic knot wyvern to honor his persona.The green blanket under Morgan was chosen to support Ciaran’s wish for favorite colors and to balance out the gold of his lute and Laurel leaves.Morgan posing as the “Noble Hound”
Order of the Pearl, on vellum, gouache, gesso and gold leaf, and shell gold.
This particular scroll is dear to me for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, it is for my Laurel, Goodwife Michel Almond de Champagne. It is a turnabout that is rare for while she is a Laurel in A&S, she did not receive it in Atlantia. She has a similar award from the East, but she had done so much for Atlantia that all within our Pearls agreed this was due her.
Second, we share a love of Fleur de Lys (Lis)
I had been drooling over this particular exemplar for quite some time, when the only photos had been when it went up for auction and finally when it was placed on exhibit. Quite a wait indeed!
Fourth, I wanted to show what I’d learned (see the Pearl), stretch my wings (trying people for the first time).
Finally, I wanted it to the the exact same size as the exemplar, and to have the appearance that I had pulled two pages from within the Hours itself.
Size view.Showcasing her initials in 3 different gold “strengths” as a monogram.The exemplar’s page of influence.Progression of the piece.My first “people”. Me offering my Laurel a Pearl, irises as our shared fleur de Lys influence and on her under gown, more raised gold fleurs. While I see so much I would do differently now, working in miniature was very new and faces were intimidating.The exemplar’s page where Mary receives her news…
This was a scary challenge:of my first non-perg scroll, a concept of attempting exacting size replication, and a gift from my heart to Michel, for without her, my wings would have never taken flight.
This was one of those scrolls that just manifested itself! The award is an Atlantian fighting award of two Osprey around a sword. I was told that the recipient had a Viking persona, and not much more beyond the reason for the award, garnered from the Herald’s report on the Book of Faces.
The actual award
I have seen variations on these Viking birds for a while as reproduction pieces, jewelry, etc. These pieces are pulled from harness mounts recovered in a find from Gotland in Sweden and dated to about 600 n. Chr. They are now on exhibit in the Statens Historiska Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.) centered around a broad sword.
The design layoutFreshly laid gessoImpressionsI drew in outlines on pergamenata, then used raised gesso to create each bird, imprinting the patterns on the solidifying gesso. (Hindsight: should have done those a bit sooner than I did…the gesso was quite firm!)Getting a photo of the gold leaf sparkling was a bit hard. The sword contained the transliteration of the award in runes to present the award and the hilt of the sword became his (future) heraldry.
Putting out the page that shows the progression of Exemplars and unfinished Exemplars made me think about errors. everyone does them and I think that they happen more often than we care to admit. We fully can blame our Patron Demon, Titavillus, but despite our most concerted efforts, errors happen…misspelled words, missing words, ink or paint drips and splashes…but most can be fixed, amended or even pointed out with a “blatant” correction.
Yay! I’m done…oh shoooot…..Baron of Caer Mear?!Hmm, the recipient loves her birds…sneaky cockatoo grabbed the “y”. Typical bird!Fixed, with a period acceptable technique!A period appropriate fix. I missed writing the “y” for the word barony. The recipient has a passion for birds and bird rescue. So I painted in a very naughty cockatoo stealing the letter from the word.
I would like to say here that some civilizations feel that nothing can be perfect except that which is made by their deity /divine beings. Examples abound in ceramic painting of plates, cups as well as weaving of rugs, etc. Even in religious texts, errors are often struck through, pointed at or circled rather than erased. Messy for sure, but also an indication that the scribe was merely human.
Sometimes you can correct the error with creative work. Here, I widened the single “L” to either side of the original, allowed the ink to dry, then gently scraped away the center to create the two “L”’s that were in her name. Letter height is approximately 4mm.The “before”Cat-astrophe!Scraping away the gouacheRepairs underway…More repairs…Repaired scroll sectionFinished piece, with the repaired section front and center (and now safely under glass!).Sometimes an error is not your fault and you have some “help” . We have 4 cats, two of which were kittens at the time. They came over to see what I was doing and knocked my rinse water over. Cat assistants are so VERY period!
Here you will find many errors, including paw prints across sacred texts. At least mine wasn’t urine…..
“An (sic) here’s another purrpetrator. The Historisches Archiv in Cologne, Germany houses a manuscript with an interesting history. According to the blog MedievalFragments, “a Deventer scribe, writing around 1420, found his manuscript ruined by a urine stain left there by a cat the night before. He was forced to leave the rest of the page empty, drew a picture of a cat and cursed the creature with the following words:”
Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt. Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come. What I would sincerely love to know is whether, almost 600 years later, the urine smell has left the page. Cat owners, you’ll know what I mean.
Most every scroll will have an “oops”, and every scribe has made errors. If one were to tell you otherwise , it would be a blatant falsehood. The learning is in the sharing, knowing that even the best among us can – and do – make mistakes, and that they share the knowledge with up-and-coming scribes makes us all better. Errors suck, but they are not egregious…they’re just a part of the game.
The finished scroll is fun to present and show off, it can be flashy and admired, but it doesn’t really exemplify all of the work that is put in to the creation. It also doesn’t show the “ugly” phases. Most beginning scribes get part way through a scroll and begin to think, “This will NEVER be lovely or look anything like the exemplar!” and want to give up. But we do have quite a few unfinished exemplars that show us just how “ugly” an illumination is before it becomes the final text.
I’d like to show some of those as well as a few of mine. Scribes, I feel, don’t often pull back the curtain to reveal their work in progress. I want it to be an encouragement to others, that a scroll HAS TO BE “UGLY” before it is done. It is how the illumination grows, layer by layer.
The glory of these pages is that they show us not only the ugly bits, but also “How They Were Done”. Images were sketched out, gold was applied, base colors, then details, then highlights. These are so very helpful in figuring out any exemplar that one wishes to use!
Progression of the Coral BranchHeavy on the gold…Flowers, a cat-astrophy, and correction (special thinks to Finnegan for spilling my paint water)Concept to end
I do confess that showing progression is a bit intimidating as your work is laid bare for perusal. But if it helps even one person to say, “Pfft, I can do that!” or “Hmm, that doesn’t look so hard!”, then it is totally worth being under the microscope!
This award scroll was requested for a protégé and friend by her mentor. I was honored to be asked to do this for her. I also had a very close inside source to help with personalizing her scroll!
The recipient had held the position of exchequer at many levels from local all the way up to kingdom – she was the main “money counter”. Her persona is German, and her mentor snuck me photographs of some,of her collectibles, especially adorable troll, dragon and wizard figurines. She also requested inclusion of a beloved cat who had passed on but will always be a large piece of the recipient’s heart.
What would befit such a wonderful person? I thought of a painting by Quentin Matsys in 1514 called The Money Lender (or Changer) and His Wife. Most important in the painting for my purpose is the main tool of his trade, a scale.
Now to add realism…I had only two photographs of her kitty, and one was with him mostly facing away in profile. The other was a dark frontal view that required a bit of adjustment to get details…thank goodness for modern photo apps!
The idea of her cat, nestled smugly on a treasure of coin and jewels appealed, along with a very chagrined dragon looking on who SHOULD have that hoard! At the base of the scale her troll and wizard sleep, balanced and holding up the scale as a decoration. The beam is held in place by her heraldry, topped by a carved wooden Pelican in her Piety, the symbol of this award.
The dragon is cobbled from reality, using the wings of a bat and the body of an adorable lizard from Africa often called an Oroborous Lizard.
The batwinged lizard, aka dragon
I wanted to make the pile of gold pop, and so created a fairly thicker gesso that would create depth with a 3-Dimensional perspective as the scroll was viewed. Gesso, once dried, will burnish, or polish, to an amazing mirror shine that, when gold leaf is applied dazzles the eye.
Gesso applied and on the left, the very start of burnishing.Burnished gesso in 3-D!Gold leaf applied, drawing the dragon’s envy.Process of gesso and gilding (Coliro golds fill in the background as well as the bowl of the dish. I wanted her kitty to be the center of attention, not the bowl.
The Pelican in Her Piety was from a wood carving I had found online from the Scottish National War Museum. Unfortunately, that link no longer exists on their site so that is the extent of obtainable history. I wanted to recreate it as a wooden finial – no gold – atop the main bar of the scale, positioned above her heraldry.
Scottish National War Museum, Pelican in her PietyWooden finial Pelican
On the bottom, I place “decorations” on the scale – a troll and a wizard, modeled on the sneaky photos from her mentor of ones that were in the recipient’s home.
Troll figurinesWizard figurines Her figurines and a sleeping troll covered in his tail and a sleeping wizard, glowing magical spell in hand.
The background is pergamenata, the dragon and cat with gold are on parchment, cut out and applied to the pergamenata for layering. I used gouache for paint, with homemade gesso and gold leaf for the raised gold and the Coliro mica for flat fill. I also used the mat board to lend further dimension to the scale.
A backlog Baronage scroll: First iteration to the left, redo to the right.
Why are there two scrolls? I have the USPS to thank for allowing me a redo and a, IMO, vastly better second scroll.
It is not often that we do multiples of the same scroll, although it does occur (awards, largess, replacements, etc.). in this instance, I had finished the scroll, sent it to our Backlog Deputy and she had brought it, along with quite a few others, to her local post office. Time stretched and no word on delivery. Then she received this in the mail…
Waterlogged Scroll…
She was appalled, I was mad-sad at the USPS…and my brain stalled. This was my first effort at squashed bug, pearls and creating realism.
The scroll was a backlog, the recipient LOVES unicorns and purple. She is an archer and her heraldry contains oak leaves and acorns. I also had a photograph (courtesy of FB stalking) that showed her in a favorite dress. I had found a wonderful pair of exemplars to use as well.
War UnicornAdd MS 35313Add MS 35313Exemplars for this scroll
So it came together nicely! I used the side border of the Add MS, exemplar but in purple as that was her favorite color, and placed the War Unicorn below. I created an arrow through the primary initial, topping it with an oak leaf. On the unicorn’s blanket, I substituted oak leaves. A crown for her Baronage floated behind her like a divine image.
And then the postal soaking…now what?! Here was a scroll beyond any hope of redemption, and a lovely person still without their scroll. I so loved how I had fit her personal likes and persona bits into the scroll that it really was a no brained. She WOULD have her scroll, and she would have THIS scroll remade. Which I did. With improvements. Using lessons learned from the first. As I stated above it is not common to do a scroll more than once, and once completed, we often find ourselves picking apart our work. “If only I had done this or colored that differently”….so I took this as an opportunity for self improvement; a lesson to myself. How can I make this scroll better?
First, the pearls. They are, to my eye, much more realistic the second time around and seem to pop off of the page in full 3-D. My shading of the shadow box is bolder and less hesitant which adds to the realism/tromp l’œil. The primary initial is now raised gold leaf on gesso, more bold, more shiny. The blanket design now pops and her oak leaves are a focal point rather than a background thought, while the background of the picture is more vivid, and finally, the crown. It went from mica gold to raised gesso and gold leaf. It is HAPPENING! And again, a bolder set of colors and technique than the first…this scroll version is more confident and certain.
While I would never wish to have this happen again (all scrolls I mail are now in water-proof packaging and no longer via USPS), it was a learning opportunity and a progression along my scribal path to push myself to be better, to not let ill luck defeat me and to finally get a deserving recipient their award scroll.
A Fountain written in Old English, for a Saxon Recipient
This was one of those scrolls that fairly created itself. The recipient has a Saxon persona and who, among many skills, is able to recite Beowulf entirely in Old English. He is a retired Marine, so I wanted a “strong” Fountain to better reflect hie mien.
The wording is in Old English, using multiple web sites (an OE dictionary and translation sites (such as this one) to check how the wording fit from OE to modern day English) to try and get a more accurate and proper translation. I knew some modern words would not translate, but did my best to make it flow and choose the correct wording so that hopefully, his reading would agree with my writing.
The figure is my take on Grendel from Beowulf, with my mental story of him terrorizing a village and then caught in a village’s fountain by a witch’s spell which turned him to stone. His face is based on an Italian gargoyle and the crosses at the bottom are based on a various Anglo-Saxon relics as well as the recipient’s tabard. The runes above his head are a transliteration of the word “Grendel”.
A bit out of our time, but the gargoyle’s expression was the perfect image I wanted to convey anguish and some horror at being turned to stone.
Translation: As a fountain sprays water into the world, giving of itself, there are those in Our Kingdom of Atlantia who do the same for the populace. Ulfbeorn Ælfweardes sunu exemplifies this giving nature. He has served his barony as both Exchequer and Seneschal, making sure that it flows as smoothly as water in a gentle river. His steadfast devotion to his barony without expectation of reward makes Us, King Anton and Queen Luned bestow upon him Our Fountain. Done this 24th day of October, A.S. LV at Our celebration of Castile Court at Alcazar de Segovia.
The scroll itself is gouache on pergamenata, using shading to convey the water falling as well as the texture of worn stone.
From gargoyle to terrified monster.Ensuring my calligraphy was period appropriate to the Saxon/Old English timeframe.
An anachronistic piece, this Backlog White Scarf phénakistoscope for Count Dietrich is a bit out of our timeline. But it worked gloriously. Since this was a backlog scroll, I asked Count Dietrich what kind of scroll he would like….he responded that he’d like one showing him fighting. A single picture would not really capture the feel of fighting, but take this out for a spin and you’ll watch the fighters engage over and over again.
The quote inside is German, from a Master’s Fightbook and was done in red ink:
Wiltu daz dirß fechten glück Bïß frisch verhalt nit lang die stück Fight-Master Hans Talhoffer,Fechtbuch (1459-Thott)
(Translation: Would that your fighting be lucky –Then be lively, withhold not long the play.)
These devices were created in the early 19th century, quite out of our SCA period although mathematicians and scientists were well aware of the concept of persistence of motion long before then. The method of action of a phénakistocope was to suspend the disc on a handle and spin it manually while holding the picture side up to a mirror. One would then look through the edge slits as it spun to see the action in the mirror.
I researched the origins and found many digitized originals but finally one photo of an exhibit in the Bedford Museum in England. Communication was not possible at the time to enquire about the exhibit due to the Covid shut-down. However, the one photo DID show a handle.
Handle and screw front of a scope.
My father is a very accomplished woodworker, I described the purpose, showed him the photograph and together, we made the handle and the wooden button screw from a piece of pecan wood from their property. The screw is NOT metal nor are the threads. We did decide on a few washers to allow the scope to rotate more smoothly and not damage the screw or handle.
The backer board was cut out by my Laurel, Michel Almond de Champagne after we corroborated on the size and design, width of slits, etc. based on my illumination. This did take a few tries to perfect and lots of spinning of a partially completed design taped to the wheel!
Final assembly was gouache on perg sprayed with a few passes of a clear coat to protect it and glued to the board. The center was meant to emulate a mirror…white gold leaf to create a silver look without the tarnish of real silver leaf. I used pictures of Count Dietrich fighting to recreate his outfit as well as motions. His opponent was intentionally left bland to emphasize the Count. In the final frame, you can see Dietrich’s killing blow.
What I loved most about this was involving my non-SCA family in this project as well as my dearest SCA family member. It took thought and planning to bring back this relic and then to spin it so it was relevant to a scroll and showed what was requested, the recipient fighting. Truly an anachronism both forward and backward looking!
Philomene’s Scriptorium 