Some more thoughts on scroll work.

Still trying to articulate something useful.

1) Light boxes are perfectly okay. I cannot draw anything freehand but I have a nice light box. No one expects a new scribe to make scrolls in a 100% period fashion. Light boxes, mechanical pencils, Micron pens: make full use of modern conveniences. If all scribes were expected to use period pigments and vellum from scroll one, the SCA will not have any scribes. If you are one of those talented people who can draw or paint free-hand, I am envious of you: I need to work off of an existing image.

2) Work to the level of your own skill. Please to do not think that you have to work at the skill level of other, more experienced scribes. I cannot do perspective drawing. Nor can I do blackwork or gold leaf. I can look at say, the Enkhuizen Book of Hours, and admire the skill and talent that went into making it. I know of many scribes that have the skill to do scrolls in that style, but it is well beyond my limited ability. So, I won't waste time and paper trying to use that style. I might in the future, when I have another few years of practice. I like early period work, which has no perspective, minimal shading and very simple designs. That is my wheelhouse and I like the style.

3) Scrolls do not have to be covered border to border in layers of paint and gold leaf. If done well, simple and be nice. The above image is two colors and red ink. It is from Harley 2799 and the manuscript is full of very basic, simple initials. Start small and work your way up to more complicated images.

4) Figure out which mistakes are worth fixing. On the above image, I should have used green paint for the bottom half of the 'P', but I wasn't paying attention and started putting blue instead of green. Five minutes into my blue period I realized what I did and then kept painting. The amount of work it would have taken to scrape the blue off certainly didn't out weigh how bad it would look afterwards. I just went ahead and kept painting. I did test to see what green on blue looked like and it didn't look nice. Period manuscripts are full of errors, don't feel bad if you stray over the lines, or if you use the wrong color or if you smudge some ink.

5) If you screw up completely, throw it away and start over. Paint and paper are cheap and you have to weigh your time; fix a major mistake or start over. Most of the time, it is not worth the time, sweat and tears fixing a major boo-boo. The above image is a good example: I made a very nice white-vine 'V' and smudged the ink. Then I made a complete mess trying to scrape and sand the mistake. I spent an hour trying to fix it before giving up and starting over with a new sheet of paper. It happens. Don't sweat it. Start early enough so that you have extra time to deal with mistakes, and if you miss a deadline, keep working. Mistress E-kat is working on a scroll for me and, she confessed to me, one of her cats jumped up on the table and spilled a glass of water on her paper and all of the nice gold leaf she was working on: ruined. She said that she could not save it and would have to start over. It happens. I'm not mad. She showed me what she had finished before the deluge and I can wait until she finishes it to her satisfaction. Most people in the SCA will be happy to wait.

6) Start work as soon as you get an assignment. Life can get busy, you can make a mistake, things can happen. If you get an assignment three months in advance and you finish it a week later; that leaves you with 2.75 months to do the Scotty; "Och, I cannae do it in three months but I'll give it mah best," while you spend the time binge watching Dr. Who.  Plus, the sooner I finish an assignment and hand it off to someone else, that's less time for me to screw it up.

7) It doesn't have to be perfect. Do not let perfect be the enemy of good. When I started doing scroll work, every scroll HAD TO BE ABSOLUTELY PERFECT and I would spend extra hours slapping more and more layers of paint onto the paper and looking back on those scrolls; they are terrible compared to what I'm doing today. The hardest lesson I had to learn was to stop. Leave the scroll as is. I had to teach myself when to stop putting paint down and that if it isn't a perfectly shaded area, that it is okay. More layers of paint is not better than fewer layers if it just makes the paper wet.

8) Don't be afraid to try new things. Talk to other scribes and take their classes, if possible. Ask other scribes if you could try their paint. Most scribes in the SCA like to talk and share "secrets". The best lessons I received, in regards to scribal, was after asking a better scribe, "How can I make this better?"

9) Sit down and paint. Make some time to do it. I'm not saying that you have to make 300 scrolls, or work on ten at a time, but you do have to devote 30 minutes to an hour at a time to make even a basic scroll. Make the time and do it. You will never learn how to do it if you don't, actually, do it.

10) Practice, practice, practice and practice.