The Sinister Scribe

It was a fun, if exhausting day. Up at 4:45 a.m. and home at 10:00 p.m. Yikes! I did not plan to be that late but that’s how it transpired. Many thanks to my wonderful, darling husband who sheparded the young ones all day.

I got a lot of positive feedback on my piece. My judges all but refused to judge me at a novice level. While intermediate was agreed upon, at the end they realized they had *inadvertently* judged me by advanced criteria. Hmmmmmm. Gotta watch those judges.

I asked for verbal judging only but got scoring too. Lessee:

Documentation: 7.5 out of 8
I owe this score to two wonderful people. First, my sponsor’s suggestion of using the judging standards for an event called RUSH. I forget what the acronym means. But turns out those were the standards used for QPT too! It took me a while to convince them that yes, this was my first documentation. Only negative I got was that I should consider siting more resources for “pouncing” and that judge gave me the names of books I could buy that reference it. Second, Ilaria’s suggestion to add progress pictures to the end of my documentation.
Authenticity: 8 out of 8
Received the highest comment here: “looks like it belongs in the middle ages” Woot!

Complexity: 7.75 out of 8
Because I had accurately copied the original (my goal) and not done something to “make it my own.” Meaning create an original piece in the period style. Wasn’t a huge issue but something to consider for future entries.

Workmanship: 8 out of 8
Comment: “oh wow!” *VBG*

Overall Quality
one judge commented that she wanted to take it home another wrote that she was “awed and humbled”

My little token box was filled with many little goodies. People passing by who like your work will leave small tokens for you. One “token” if I can call it that, was a small book on “Books of Hours.” I was so touched, I nearly cried! I forget her name, but she was also a scribe. I will definitely treasure.
Once all the judging is over, sponsors pick which entry most influenced them. It does not have to be the person they sponsored. And then each entrant is called up in court to receive his/her sponsor prize. I believe it was Mistress Althea that chose me. I hear that she is not easy to please. Her work is gorgeous and she specifically mentioned liking my whitework.

I am very pleased that it was so well received, but I feel soooo unworthy of all this praise. I don’t feel it was all that complicated. If it weren’t for a magnifying glass, that whitework would not have been so detailed. And if I hadn’t chanced to do a little, and I mean a little, reading on painting techniques… well you get the picture. In all, I don’t feel I did enough to deserve all the “wows” but I am greatful and inspired all the same.

I can’t wait until next year!!!!!!!

I am already considering next year’s entry. A few ideas are tossing about my head but the two I’m really considering are calligraphy with illumination and book making/binding. I’d thought about doing an all hand sewn viking garb ensemble, but I think I should focus on scribal stuff. I’m feeling the need to do one thing really well, and then barter for everything else.
Oh! There were also kids Sam’s age who entered. I told him about this of course. It would be really cool if he entered with me next year. Right now he’s considering a song on the penny whistle. I can’t spell it correctly, but it sounds like “shame-sheen.” Maybe he could research and document the origin of the song and/or the pennywhistle.

Here’s a link to the pictures I took. Captions are brief.

Last week, when I did my “storm shopping,” I did make it out to Hobby Lobby to get a frame and mat for my QPT entry. This is it sitting on the mantle. I need to open it back up and get rid of some shmutz on the mat edge, but other than that… TA DAAAAA!

Last night, I tried on the dress I *thought* I was going to wear to QPT. Here’s a picture of it:

These pictures were taken several years ago when I made it for our first 12th night event. After trying it on this last time though… I don’t really want to put it on again… ever! The corset straps sit way out on my shoulders now. Makes it hard to move my arms in some ways. Also makes my shoulders kinda ache. I guess I’ll wear sommat else. Anyone wanna trade me a nice set of hand carders for this ensemble?

I put the finishing touches on the illumination last night. At the suggestion of a really fab scribe, I re-inked the outlines. Once I get a mat and frame for it, it will be ready to go!

And now the fun part, documentation! :\ Hopefully that won’t take me until the 27th if I get on it now. I still have to decide what I’m going to wear! LOL!

Today has been a really good day homeschooling-wise. Sam has zoomed through all his work today with great enthusiasm. Even math! And we had a roof contractor here today too. Wow!

To top that off, Jessie went poop in the toilet for the first time today!

I think I need to go sit down before I faint away.

I’ve been silently working on my QPT entry. But suddenly it seems to be nearly done! Huzzah!

First shot shows most of the base colors on. The blue is ultramarine; the red scarlet lake, the green is permanent green medium and the tan is yellow ochre. The yellow ochre, for the horse, was used in transparent layers. I think it turned out well and a lot like the original. The others are used opaquely.

When I first got the base colors on, I wasn’t really happy. The red looked right for most items, but I noticed that the frame and the horse blanket were a different red in the original. So I painted those with a combination of the scarlet lake and perm. green med.

Who was it that said, “God is in the details?” Meis van der Rohe? I’m sure I’m not spelling that right but I think it was him. Anyway. It definitly holds true here. The second shot shows the detailing in progress. Hmm… thought I took a picture with the midtones done, but I can’t find it. Oh well. You can see the midtones in the second pic with the white detailing. Wow! The white detailing really makes all the difference. Makes it look a lot more complicated than it really is.

Of all the tools used so far, a magnifying glass has been the most helpful. Oh, and my gloves with the thumb and first two fingers cut off. I made the mistake of not wearing them all the time when guilding. There were a couple of spots I wasn’t sure I could get the paint to stick to. The resist areas were suspiciously fingerprint looking. *sigh*

Gotta dash! Have SCA folk coming over tonight for music practice.

Slowly but surely (and into the wee hours on several mornings) The guilding is largely done. There are still some more holes to be filled as you can see but I DID IT! Whew.

I’ve used about 2 and-a-half “pages” from my gold leaf book. By the time I patch all the little holes, smooth the edges and put on another layer, I might be up to 4.

The last bit went a little faster and smoother, but it is really not something I can do while the kids (or cat) are up and about.

We’re off ot Okieville tomorrow. Nearly packed now. I had aspirations of being all ready to go when DH got home, but that didn’t work. *sigh* I had so hoped the house would be clean when we left too. Oh well.

Have a Happy Holiday Y’all!

My first attempt to guild with real gold leaf has been a total disaster. I can’t get it to stick to the gum arabic or to the instacol. ARRRGGGHHHHHH!!! If things go much worse I will have to start all over again because I ignored my better judgment and started guilding on my inked drawing instead of a test piece. Bad scribe. Baaaaaaaad scribe!

Much Later…

OK. I think I may be getting somewhere. But first let me say that my respect for the mideaval guilder has deepend greatly this evening.

After many little gold (or nearly) blobs on the edge of my perga, I seem to have gotten a tiny feel for this maddening challenging craft. A tiny feel, mind you, but I was able to get it to finally stick. However, those once small-seeming areas to be guilded now seem as vast as the ocean! LOL!

One thing I learned tonight… to paint the gold size a smidge past the edge of the area I wanted to guild. (i.e. onto the inked line) Why? By the time the middle of the sized area is ready for the gold leaf, the edges are dry and the gold leaf won’t stick to them. Maybe there is a trick I don’t know (OK. I’m sure there are several), but that’s what I had to do. Also, the books and websites out there make this seem a helluvalot easier than I found it to be. *sigh* G’Nite!

Ta Daaa!! Major lines have been inked. Gum arabic is soaking. Who know, mebbe I’ll get to the guilding this week too.

I’m not as happy with my execution of the ink outlines. The horses neck doesn’t arch nicely and I kinda wobbled on the knight’s arm. I think I’ll go in and do the line where I should have in the first place and then scrape off the wobbly one. Yeah, I know, I’ll be the only one who can tell the difference. I did notice I forgot a line between the lion’s back legs… part of the bush-thingy behind her. Guess I’d better ink that too.

On other things: The kids and I made DH a Happy Birthday sign for the wall. Sam made a card that had a really cute saying. “No matter how old you are… you’ll always be my dad.” Daaawwwwwww! We got him a pennywhistle as a present. I used the last of a green inkle weaving to make him a cover for it.

The pennywhistle is an Oak brand. I like the sound of it so much better than the Clarke ones Sam and I have. This new one also takes so much less air to get a good tone that I almost can’t play it. LOL! I think I’ll be replacing Sam’s and my pennywhistles in the future!

Re-did the pouncing on my QPT entry today.

This time I think I got a lot of it too small. LOL! Especially around the horses head. I wonder what a “period pouncing tool” was? I used the point on my compass because it offered the most comfortable grip.

Tonight I “connected the dots” (see picture above) and got the pencil lines drawn in. I am pleased with the outcome. While the pouncing dots helped a lot, a magnifying glass helped even more. Wonder if they used ‘em in period? LOL! Some of those illuminations are quite small!

Next time I might consider pouncing the silhouettes only. The pounced details were sometimes confusing and I had to redo many of them, especially the horses bridle. I had to refer to the original frequently to make sure I got the details close to where they needed to be. After a closer look at the Aberdeen Bestiary pouncing examples, it seems that only the major outlines were pounced. I can see why!
Before we leave for OK, I’m going to try to get the lines inked in. Then the illumination begins when we get back. Woot!

A brief explanation of pouncing… a period technique used to copy images. A blank sheet of vellum would have been placed under the illumination. Then holes were carefully poked along the outlines of the image content. The vellum under the illumination became the template for making another “copy.”

First Picture: Not wanting to “waste” a sheet of perga, I pounced directly onto the printout. Then used powdered graphite (leftover from college mumbledymum years ago) to gently rub over all those little holes. The sheet to the right of the printout shows the results after gently blowing away the excess.

Second Picture:On the perga now… This time I decided to try not rubbing down because I didn’t want to cause too much smudging. This picture shows what I saw BEFORE blowing away the excess. I would show you what it looked like after blowing it away, but a blank sheet is purty boring. Doh!

Third Picture: Second try, same piece of perga. Success! So I believe a bit of rubbing is necessary to get a successful transfer.

You can see around the horse and rider it is pretty clear (dots close together) but around the tiger it is not so clear. I started thinking that the period pounce holes were not so close (not to mention that my hand was getting tired) so I spaced them apart more. I don’t know if it is the spacing or just that there is more stuff in that corner. I think it is enough however to continue with connecting the dots.

Afterthought: the tiny holes really worked better than I expected. I am tempted to redo it with tiny holes all around and the perga template. *sigh* My hand wants to cramp just thinking about it.
Stay Tuned!

The new printer arrived today. Woot! Wasn’t expecting it until next week. But now that means, I have everything I need to start working on my entry for Queen’s Prize.

Ilaria came over tonight to pick up some preprints I’d done. She gave me some gum arabic too! How sweet was that! So now I have a period gold size too.

This is what I’m going to try to recreate. It is from the Aberdeen Bestiary. If I were to let my imagination run away with me, I’d plan on doing this same one over and over until I’m using all period materials. Or each time I learn to use a new period material, I do another illustration from this bestiary. But I’m not going to let my imagination run… just yet.