This is a project I did for the 2022 College of Three Ravens A&S competition. I submitted this under the category of The Journey: " Show us your project, from the earliest learning of the art to as complete as you want to consider it. You don’t need to have a “complete” project for this one, just show your work! "

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Scroll - A Journey

Description:

This documentation will describe my journey, over the years, towards scribal excellence. I have made several scrolls based on an image from the 12th century manuscript Charleville-Mézières BM212. This paper will document what I have learned while making each scroll.

Details of the original image:

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any details about this manuscript, other than it is owned by a French university and that it dates to the 12th century. I will assume that it was made on vellum and used gold leaf.

First attempt - Technique:

The first time I attempted this image was in late 2009 or early 2010: the start of my journey of scribal work. I made it for a Golden Bee.[1] Looking at this image, now, I can clearly see that I did not know what I was doing.[2] The image was painted on Bristol cellulose paper. Probably 200# weight. 8x10” in size. The paint I was using was water-based acrylic: not gauche or water color. I used the same paint I used to paint RPG miniatures. Working from a high resolution image of the manuscript,[3] I removed the background colors and printed out the image. The design was transferred to the paper by tracing over a light box. I feel that there is no shame in using a light box, as I am better at tracing than I am at drawing free-hand.

Not knowing what I was doing, I slapped the paint onto the paper with no thought towards shading or even detail. Not used to working on paper, it is clear[4] that I was putting one wet layer of paint on top of another. If you look at the background, you can see how blotchy and uneven it is. I believe that my “plan” was to apply enough paint so that it was one, even coat. Unfortunately, too much water soaked into the paper.[5]

The only details that I had managed to do was with the addition of a black pen (Micron). While the majority of the design was traced from the source, I had free-handed the bee of the award. Not too terrible. Certainly looks more bee-like when viewed normal size.

Second attempt - Technique:

The second time I attempted this image was in 2013. It was for a backlog AOA scroll for someone in CAID. This was scroll number 117 for me [6] and I had taken some lessons on painting, and it shows. Like the first attempt, I had traced the image on a lightbox, but this time I used Arches 100% cotton paper: 9x12” in size, 140# hot press.

I used gouache, this time: Reeves for the color and Holbein for the gold. I went heavy on the gold to give it some texture. For the figures and background, I used a very watered down base coat all over, with three or four layers over each area; each layer thicker and thus, darker, than the previous one. Once the paint was dry, I added the white work. I have found that with the gouache, the added white really makes the paint pop, especially the dark paints. I applied the paint so that if the virtual light source came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page, the darkest shades would fall into the right-most corners, producing shadows.

Instead of a solid color background, I had decided to use a diaper pattern, as I had taken a class on diapering shortly before I started on this scroll. The coloration was based on the recipient’s device. Unlike the first attempt, this time was using less paint, and taking steps to attempt to do shading. Finishing with white gouache lines to simulate areas in bright light. I had also replaced my light box; the new one had a brighter, more even bulb which allowed me to see more detail of the source material.

Classes, practice, as well as 117 completed scrolls had taught me some valuable lessons. The most important of which was to see that what I was doing was wrong. That even coats was not achieved by thicker layers of paint, but by thin layers that I allowed to dry before moving on the to next layer. Better paint helped, as well. I use the cartoon method of painting: trace/draw with pencil; ink over the pencil lines; erase the graphite; paint; then ink over the lines. This gives a clear boundary between elements and allows the colors to stand out..

Third attempt - Technique:

The third time I attempted this image was in 2015. It was for a Millrind scroll. This was scroll number 240. Like the second attempt, I had traced the image on a lightbox onto Arches 100% cotton paper: 9x12” in size, 140# hot press.

This was also done with gouache: Reeves for colors and Winsor & Newton for the gold. I liked the diapering on the 2nd attempt, but I used a different style for this scroll. I used a three color square pattern: red, blue, and gold, with white, diagonal lines running through the red and blue squares. Then finished with a dot of black ink at the vertices.

I was learning to use less paint, yet make what was present do more work. I was learning to use more layers of paint in areas that I wished to be in shadow and less paint where I wanted to portray bright light. I was learning about how gouache works: by using thin layers of paint, light has to pass through more pigment before reaching the white of the paper and bouncing back towards our eyes. The layers scatter and diffuse the light, making the paint appear to be deeper, and the colors richer.

Like the second attempt, I used white lines to showcase highlights, but I was also learning to smear[7] the white ink across the paint to create areas of higher contrast. I would apply the ink with a pen, either a JellyRoll or UniBall ball point pen, or with a fountain pen loaded with blueprint ink. Then I would drag the ink with a damp brush from the spot where I wanted maximum brightness into darker areas. This smearing provided a diffusion of contrast from very white to barely detectable against the background color.

If you would compare the green in the ‘T’ on this image with the blue background on the first attempt, you can clearly see that I was much better at applying an even coat. I believe that the ‘T’ required 4 separate layers, each of gouache watered down to the consistency of Cool-Aid. The end result is visually more appealing than the thick layers of paint I used to use. I was still working on shading, but it is clear that I was making improvements.

Fourth attempt - Technique:

I had decided to use this image for a fourth time for this project.[8] There was no assignment, and no rush to make it. This blank will be used at some point: the “paper” was left blank and might have an award badge painted on it, with the tip of the brush painted in whatever color would match the badge.

This is scroll number 489 and I had made some changes to my kit and techniques. I had replaced my lightbox with a slim-line LED model in 2018. I had also added Winsor & Newton red and blue gouache.[9] Also, I had used up all of the blueprint ink that I had purchased for a drafting class I took in high school. The label had fallen off and I could not remember the brand of the ink. I had acquired a bottle of Winsor & Newton white ink and a dip pen to apply the ink.[10] I also was using a new brand of paper, new for me: Fabriano brand paper: 140#, 100% cotton paper

My technique was the same as the third attempt, only more refined. For the scribe’s garb, I first applied an extremely thin wash of paint, blue or red, then, once the wash was dry, I applied a 2nd coat starting from the right-hand edges (where I wanted shadows) and dragged the paint towards the left and lifting the brush up before reaching the left-hand edge. A third coat was applied in the same way, only I lifted the brush up further away from the left-hand edge. Then a fourth coat. Finally, a fifth coat was applied only on the right-hand edge. The method gives a feathering effect in the areas where the paint is transitioning from light to dark and prevents a solid boundary between the layers.

The white ink was applied to the left-hand edge, and where I wanted to simulate the top layers of the folded fabric, and smeared, with a damp brush, towards the right-hand edge. This gives the effect of a 3D surface, with some areas in light, and others in shadow.

I had left the skin unpainted: it’s winter. It’s okay to be pale.

I did make a mistake while doing the diapering. I had traced the image, inked it, then erased the pencil marks. Then I put a grid pattern under the paper, taped in place, and traced the grid pattern using a straight edge.[11] Then I inked the grid pattern. But, if you look at the scribe’s hands, I had inked lines running through the wrists, without noticing. Once I had started painting, I decided not to scrape the wayward ink, but to apply a light gray to the areas and pretend that I had intended on the scribe to have an under tunic.

I kept the same horizontal grid pattern as the third attempt, but I attempted a different motif, one based on an image I saw on Facebook. I was unable, on my practice sheets, to get a consistent red on the blue squares, so I compromised. I put a white box on the blue squares, with a white dot in the center, and a white cross on the red squares. I did apply too much white ink to a couple of the squares, but, overall, I like how they look, and that is the important thing.



The most important lesson I’ve had to learn over the past eleven years, and 489 scrolls, was to not stress over the mistakes, but to learn from them and learn not to “fix” your mistakes if they are too bad. I could scrape away the blob of thick, white ink, and redo that square. But I would at risk of removing too much paper and leaving a spot where the paint soaked into the paper, at that point, and left a greater eye sore.

After 489 scrolls, done for multiple Baronies, Shires, Cantons, and Kingdoms, I have surmounted Mount Stupid, fallen into the Valley of Despair,[12] and I am climbing the Slope of Enlightenment towards the Plateau of Sustainability.[13] I can clearly see the flaws in my work and now know enough see what I had done wrong. Perhaps in another few hundred scrolls, I will start to consider myself an expert on early period illumination reproduction, at least with modern paints. Being able to see one’s mistakes, and know what caused them, is the sign that one has truly started to learn. Knowing how to fix your mistakes, and equally important, how to leave them alone, is the sign that one has started understand the lessons.


[1] A&S award for the Barony of the Rhydderich Hael
[2] At the time, I thought it was great.
[3] From a Pinterest post.
[4] From the 20/20 hindsight of 2022.
[5] Have a joke about paint drying, but it is a bit boring and takes too long to tell.
[6] I had started numbering my scrolls when I started on an A&S50 challenge in 2010: 50 scroll blanks to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the SCA.
[7] Smear in a good way.
[8] 2022
[9] I had to replace a tube of paint: out of the blue.
[10] The ink is too thick to flow through a fountain pen or from my glass dip pen. I acquired a set of nibs that worked with this ink, based on recommendations from anime artists.
[11] I had also marked the boxes I intended to paint blue.
[12] Not to be confused with the Pit of Despair, the Glade of Despair, the Bog of Despair, or the Subshop of Despair.
[13] Dunning-Kruger.

Better

 The gold does make it look better.

A couple of coats of gold gouache and it does look better than with a blue background. I feel inspired and might finish it, this weekend. 

I hate it

 A WIP. I'm at the point where I hate it and don't want to work on it anymore.

Gouache on cotton paper. 

I'm sure that it will look nice when completed, but I can't work up the enthusiasm to do so. I'm not happy with how the blue turned out. I might cover up the blue in the background with gold. Perhaps that will make it pop. I don't know. 

Scroll - Axeman vs Centaur

Scroll - Axeman vs Centaur

Description:

Two scrolls depicting the same image of a inhabited initial ‘A’, depicting a centaur spearing a man holding an axe: opening psalm 77. Inspired by folio 101r of the 12th century Hunterian Psalter.[1] Also known as the York Psalter. Gouache and ink on Fluid 140 pound, hot-pressed, cotton paper and a miniature of the same image on vellum, also with gouache and ink.

The larger image was made as a scroll blank. The smaller was made for the Shelter-In-Place Scribal War.

Details of the original image:

Vellum, 11½ x 7½, ff. 202, originally ff. 204, beautifully written in one hand (except the last 33 folios, in XIV. Cent. hand), in single cols. of 21 lines (in Kalendar 35 lines), each 8½ x 4¼, ruled and margined with plummet, 13 full-page pictures, one full-page illumination, gilt, historiated or illuminated initials begin the first verse of each Psalm, small gilt initials (ornamented in Ps. xcvi.) begin the second and following verses, no signatures or catchwords, partial foliation, modern (in pencil), the Kalendar is written in black, red, blue and green, cropped, marginalia (first three folios only), fol. sec. Martis. Cents. XII. (and XIV.) Binding: Millboards, covered crimson morocco, richly gilt-tooled inside margins, edges and sides (lines), panelled back, title (gilt): PSALTERIUM | UETUS | IN MEMBRANIS. Late Cent. XVII. [For detailed collation see: John Young and P. Henderson Aitken, A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of The Hunterian Museum in The University of Glasgow. (Glasgow, 1908), p. 170.]

Although much of the early life of the Psalter remains a mystery, its acquisition by Glasgow University is quite clear. It came as part of William Hunter’s magnificent library in 1807, along with the rest of his wonderful collections. Dr William Hunter (1718-83) was a famous anatomist and physician, and renowned collector of books, manuscripts, coins, medals, paintings, shells, minerals, and anatomical and natural history specimens. Under the terms of his will, his library and other collections remained in London for several years after his death - for the use of his nephew, Dr Matthew Baillie (1761-1823) - and arrived at the University in 1807.

Hunter’s collection of books contains some 10,000 printed books and 650 manuscripts; it forms one of the finest Eighteenth Century libraries to survive intact. Hunter acquired this volume at the sale of the library of Louis-Jean Gaignat in Paris on 10 April 1769, along with several other books. His French agent, Jean B. Dessain, bought it at the auction on Hunter’s behalf for fifty livres and one sou; it was described in the sale catalogue as a ‘codex pervetustus’ (‘an antiquated book’). Now regarded as the greatest treasure in his library, Hunter was paying three times as much for early printed books at the time. [2]

Technique:

The initial image was a scroll blank, made with no assignment in mind. I had already made this image twice before, so I had some experience with it. I used gouache and ink on paper rather than vellum and period pigments as I do not have experience with period pigments, nor do I own any, and I did not have any vellum or pergamenta; only cotton paper. Working from a high resolution image of the manuscript, [3] I removed the background colors and printed out the image. The design was transferred to the paper by tracing over a light box. I feel that there is no shame in using a light box, as I am better at tracing than I am at drawing free-hand.

The scroll was made on Fluid 100% cotton, 140# hot-press watercolor paper. This scroll is 9x12” in size. I used gouache: Reeves and Winsor & Newton for colors and Holbein for the gold. I went heavy on the gold to give it some texture. For the figures and background, I used a very watered down base coat all over, with three or four layers over each area; each layer thicker and thus, darker, than the previous one. Once the paint was dry, I added the white work. I have found that with the gouache, the added white really makes the paint pop, especially the dark paints. I applied the paint so that if the virtual light source came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page, the darkest shades would fall into the right most corners, producing shadows.

I used a very watered down light-blue wash on the metal bits: the axe and spear heads. I have found, over the years, that the silver paint just doesn’t look good and a light wash give the appearance of if not metal than some material that is different than fabric or flesh. Leaving the metal bits unpainted gives the impression that the scroll is unfinished and using darker paint doesn’t give the impression of metal. Beside, this is a technique used in many medieval manuscripts, the Hunterian Psalter for example.

The background of the letter was painted with ultramarine blue gouache and highlighted with white dots: no highlighting or shading was used. Several layers of gold paint were used to make the objects stand out. The goal was to produce an image that would stand out and be visible when it was displayed in court.

Once the all of the paint had dried, I outlined all of the sections with black ink to make the image further stand out, then added white ink and paint to the highlights, to give the figures a sense of depth.

The second piece, made for the Shelter-In-Place Scribal War, was done on a 2x3” piece of actual vellum and was my first experience with working with the material. I scaled down the source image and traced it onto the scrap of vellum. I used the same ink and paint technique as I used on the paper version, but I prepped the vellum with a piece of fine sandpaper, followed up with some pounce, to remove any oil from the surface. A procedure not required on the cotton paper.

I kept the colors the same, except for the legs of the axeman: on the larger image I had used green, but I used light blue on the vellum piece because I wasn’t paying attention: I had started to apply the blue before I realized that I wasn’t using the correct color. Not a major mistake, but a mistake none the less. Also, due to the size of the piece, I was forced to use reading glasses in order to see the fine details. Even so, I had mistakenly applied the background paint where the centaur’s shield was supposed to be. I didn’t want to scrape the paint off of the vellum, since I had no experience with the material and did not want to damage it. I inked around the blue, I had applied, and made the shield more narrow. I think that it isn’t very noticeable when viewed full size; it is when you look at the high-res image.

Unlike paper, the ink and paint didn’t soak into the vellum, but floated on top of it until it dried. [4] This required me to apply a thin layer of gouache to all areas and let each one dry completely before moving on. Subsequent layers then sat atop the dry foundation layer and were less likely to run.

[1] Glasgow, University Library, MS. Hunter 229
[2] From the University of Glasgow’s web site: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detail_c.cfm?ID=34725
[3] Provided by the Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department’s web site: Book of the Month, May 2007, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/may2007.html
[4] This is the same when working with pergamenta.

References:

Caballero, Rosario; Díaz Vera, Javier E. Textual Healing: Studies in Medieval English Medical, Scientific and Technical Texts. Peter Lang, 2010

Gibson, Margaret T.; Heslop, T. A.; Pfaff, Richard William. The Eadwine Psalter: Text, Image, and Monastic Culture in Twelfth-century Canterbury. Penn State Press, Jan 1, 1992

Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department’s web site: Book of the Month, May 2007, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/may2007.html

University of Glasgow’s web site: http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/detail_c.cfm?ID=34725

Another scroll done

And It Doesn't Look That Bad.

This is a scroll for a friend. I think that it looks nice... Now that it is done. I spent so much time thinking that I was wasting my time on it 'cause it was so bad.

Here is an example of how I made it:

1) I found the image and finagled the 'L' into an 'F'
2) I traced the image using a light box. Joy levels were high. My friend will be so happy.
3) Took a break 'cause painting it will be so easy.
4) Somehow make the spit-turner look more like a troll than the original image.
5) "We'll fix it in post!"
6) Start putting paint down. "My colors aren't working. I must not know what I'm doing. This is going to look awful. Why did I choose these colors?"
7) "Why did I take such a long break from painting? I forgot everything I learned about painting. I'm barely better than a 3rd grader doing finger painting!"
8) Put everything away and build a new work bench for the basement so that I can feel what accomplishing something is like.
9) Pull everything back out and start painting again.
10) Start filling in all of the elements. "Why did I do this image? Nothing I'm doing looks like the original image. The troll looks like a mutant troll."
11) Start the shading. "Now I know I don't know what I'm doing. This looks terrible. I might as well throw it away and never do it again."
12) Finish up another scroll and take heart that perhaps I can do this.
13) 30 SECONDS LATER: start looking for another image to make a replacement scroll.
14) Power through the insecurity.
15) Start the highlighting. "You know... This doesn't look half bad. I don't know what I was worried about."
16) Make a minor mistake while doing the whitework. "AAAAHHHHHHGGGGGG!!!! I ruined it! My friend is going to hate me!"
17) Finish the piece and rationalize the experience. "I knew that I could do it. This will look great when it's handed out in court. Easy as pie. Mmmmmm, pie.....!"
18) Notice that I forgot to paint legs on the cook. Or add the fire.
19) Drop an 'F' bomb.
20) Experiment with fire on a scrap of paper.
21) Find a method that looks good-ish.
22) Make a mess with the Yellow.
23) Make is worse with the Orange.
24) Put too much water in the Red and smear the Red into the Orange and Yellow.
25) DAMN! That looks good. I'm on fire!
26) Put the brush down and walk away, thinking that I knew I could do it.
27) Grudgingly admit that it looks nice and that my friend will like it. 
28) The spit turner still looks like a mutant troll. But I'm okay with that.

This is pretty much what I go through when I make scrolls. For the most part, I'm happy with the end results but I sweat over making the scroll.

Things you probably should not put on a scroll

Unless You Really, Really Want To

The image is of the aftermath of the battle between King Arthur and Mordred's armies on Salisbury Plain. 

You should never use it as an SCA scroll, unless you really want to.

This will be the tourney scroll for a speed tourney at an upcoming event. I'm not happy with my white work, particularly on the blue, but I'm not going to mess with it and make it worse. 

I am happy with how it turned out. All the while I was working, on this scroll, I hated it. It didn't look good. I didn't think it was going to work out. I had to do it twice: the first one was ruined by an errant splash of dumpling sauce. I didn't think I could remove the stains without damaging the paper. Remember, it's only paper and time. If I think I can remake the scroll in less time than I would use to fix it, I'm going to remake the scroll. 

In any case, I thought this was a complete waste, while I was working on it. The blue was giving me issues. The mail looked like a hodgepodge of a mess. It wasn't until I had finished the white work that my inner critic shut the hell up. 

Although, if I must be honest. I really messed up on the upper most horse. Either it has a very bad overbite or someone chopped it's lower jar off. Or, perhaps it was something more sinister. 

Nope! I don't like it.

Nope! I Don't Like It.

Welp, I was working on this scroll for {THAT EVENT THAT YOU LOVE} and I just don't like how it looks. I love the image, but the paint wasn't working for me. The background is supposed to be a pale blue wash. The paint just wasn't working for me. Sometimes that happens. I just don't want to deal with it, right now. Sometimes, you just have to set it aside and start over. There's no point in working on something that will only aggravate you. 

So, I grabbed a new sheet of paper and started over.

This time I went with a gold background. It looks better, already. I'll take care of the other one, at a later date, and use this one for {THAT EVENT YOU LOVE}. Paper is cheap; if you hate what you are working on, you will never want to finish it. 

Fixed

A Little Bit At A Time.

After letting the ink dry for a couple of days, I scrapped the smudges off with an Xacto knife and sanded the area clean. I used a white foam emery block. Then I used a soft, white eraser to remove any left over ink.

It's not perfect, but it's no longer an obvious mistake. I think that my best course of action is to do a little at a time, and let the ink dry before moving on to another section.

Let me just end this post with this question: How in the hell did people do this free-hand? With a dip pen, no less. I'm tracing this on a light box and I'm having trouble making it look nice. 

Also, I hate it as much as I hate knot work and will most likely never do this again. 

And I was doing so well.

I must have been channeling the spirit of Charlie Brown.

Yikes.

My first scroll with my new pen and I made a blot. Right at the end of the text, no less. And I was so happy that I was unable to get the ink to fall off of the pen and then a drop of ink fell off in mid word.

Poo.

I had decided not to fix the mistake. I blotted up the excess ink with a napkin and just kept writing. I figured that anything that I would do to remove the blot would make the scroll look worse. Sometimes you just have to leave the mistake alone.

Sometimes you have to leave things alone.

I like how it looks, unfinished.

I just finished this scroll, and when I mean finished, I mean I was going to paint I but I really like how it looks with just ink, so I didn't paint it. Now, the original image (Royal 1 B XI f. 2v ) was unpainted: I was going to paint it in but once I had finished inking over the pencil lines, I thought that it looked nice and that I could not improve it with paint. Also, I had made a couple of mistakes when I inked it; nothing that stands out as just ink lines, but if I had painted it, my mistakes would really stand out.

All I need is to give this to a scribe who can do extremely fine calligraphy (I'm thinking {THAT CALLIGRAPHER YOU LOVE} but anyone who has better penmanship skills than myself can make this look awesome) and it will make a fine scroll for someone in the Kingdom.

Sometimes, a mistake can be left alone and still leave you with something very nice. 

Another Three Scrolls completed

And Some Retrospective

Another trio of scrolls illuminated. One of these is for an assignment for {THAT PERSON THAT YOU LIKE} and the other two were to keep the first from getting lonely. See, I have a theory. Not a great theory but it's mine. If you work on only one scroll, it will take a long time 'cause the scroll is lonely and doesn't want to be finished. If you work on several at the same time, they all become friends and encourage you to finish them so that they can hang out, together, in your scroll case. Without you. Because they hate you and don't want to be around you.

Like I said; not a great theory. I finished up these three while watching Stranger Things. Wow. Great show. I kept getting distracted. In both directions: the painting distracted me from the show and the show distracted me from the painting.

 All three were designs that I've done before. I just pulled the print outs out of an envelope and traced them. One of them I did way back in 2012, when I thought I knew what I was doing.

This was scroll 93: The 43rd scroll for my second A&S 50 challenge. In 20/20 hind sight, I really did not know what I was doing. Oh, I am not saying that I know everything, now, about how to do illumination. Far from it. But now I know enough to identify my flaws. And, man, are there lots of flaws.

In the old scroll, I just slapped paint everywhere. In the new scroll (number 314) I used a fraction of the pigment I had used on the first one, and I was careful as to where I put it. Although, I think the diapering on the old one looks better: I kind of rushed it on the new one and the crosses look sloppy. But I have improved my whitework and my shading is better. At this rate, I should be an expert in another ten years.

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.

If only real life had an undo function

A little bit of scraping; a little bit of erasing; a whole lot of swearing. And Iggity-aggity-oop-eh-eh! Ziggity-zaggity-zoo-ah-ah! Oooh-ooh-phblt! Eh-eh-ah! Flippity-flappity-floop! It's fixed and ready to be delivered to the appropriate people.