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Scroll 1 — Middle Kingdom — Scroll Blank
This is the first scroll I ever did. I was very nervous about doing one and thought I could never draw. Someone gave me a copy of a black and white blank and told me to trace it so I could try painting without worrying about drawing a design. It was the perfect confidence booster AND showed me I had alot of work to do to learn some basic painting techniques. I can tell you I was quite sick of leaves by the end of this but that didn't last — See Scroll 5 to see a more “leaf intensive” design.
Scroll 2 — Middle Kingdom — Scroll Blank
This is the same design as Scroll 1. Both of these were traced designs and given as blanks. I painted Scroll 2 much the same as Scroll 1 but switched the bar colors. After painting these two blanks, I learned the importance of getting designer grade gouache. I was using student grade and it was really difficult to keep the paint flowing, especially since I am an inexperienced painter. Both blanks ended up being finished by a calligrapher and were given out to two sisters who were each receiving an Order of the Willow that day.
Scroll 3a — Scroll Blank
This scroll was an original design. It was inspired by a design I saw on the Gutenberg School of Scribes website . I had gotten my feet wet by tracing and now I wanted to try putting things together on my own. I left space in the middle of the vines so that I could add a badge or something to personalize the scroll once I had an assignment. It's still basic, but I was pretty pleased with the result. My whitework still needs improvement, but it was better than my first two scrolls. And yes, I used a gel pen for whitework — bad! bad! bad! I'm using a brush and gouache these days but at least the first 5-6 scrolls here were whiteworked with a gel pen while I learned what I was doing.
Scroll 3b — Middle Kingdom — Award of Arms
I was given an AoA assignment with incorrect court location and royalty information (see Scroll 4). With only a day's notice to complete a new scroll, I knew I wouldn't have time to do another one from scratch. I grabbed my blank and tried to determine how to personalize it for the recipient. An AoA has no badge, the person had no registered device, and I was leery of my drawing skills! Since her name was LeFleur and she was an avid fencer, — mentioned in her AoA — I ended up adding a large flower similar to the smaller ones in the vine design and over that I added a sword.
Scroll 4 — Middle Kingdom — Award of Arms
This was the original scroll I drew for the recipient of Scroll 3b. I had to discard it as the information was incorrect, but we used it as an example at a shire demo. The design was inspired by a page from the Lutrell Psalter, English circa 1325-35.
I was pretty pleased with the overall result of the illumination. Lady Ambr Stormwatch had taught me how to freehand the 3 pointed leaves so there was no tracing involved on this scroll. I was rather glad that I was given the wrong information for this scroll and had to redo one for the recipient. The calligraphy was my first attempt — Carolingian hand — and I did not do a very good job. First off, I apparently lined the text area with crooked lines and secondly, the letters are not even remotely uniform in size or spacing. I was very displeased with the calligraphy and if you look again at Scroll 3b above, you'll see that while it needs work, my calligraphy on that scroll was an improvement.
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