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.

Smudge!

I had just finished the calligraphy, put the pen away and I smudged the last two lines. I'll wait until tomorrow before I'll touch it.

The earliest known image of beer pong

This is an image from Tacuinum Sanitatis BNF Nouvelle Acquisition Latine f.88, dated to 1673, shows an early image of beer pong, perhaps the earliest image known. Notice the red solo cups on the table. Unfortunately, one cannot see what they are using for a ball.

Another one done

Here is another scroll blank; this one is inspired by British Library, Sloane MS 1975, Folio 13r. This scroll is a perfect example of how I make scrolls.
1) Find a nice, high resolution image. "This would be a great idea for a scroll. It looks great and I can do it 'cause it's going to be easy."
2) Trace the design. "Hmmm. It's a bit more complicated than I thought, but I can do it 'cause it's going to be easy."
3) 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?"
4) Start filling in all of the elements. "Why did I do this image? Nothing I'm doing looks like the original image."
4) 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."
5) Start inking the outlines. "All I'm doing is making a huge mess. This will never be good enough to give away as a award. Why did I even bother."
6) Notice that I can't number a list correctly. "Why did I bother to blog this? Now everyone will know how bad my work is and that I can't count."
7) Start the highlighting. "You know... This doesn't look half bad. I don't know what I was worried about."
8) Make a minor mistake while highlighting. "AAAAHHHHHHGGGGGG!!!! I ruined it!"
9) Turn the mistake into a hat or a bulbous bouffant. "Eh! That looks nice."
10) 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.....!"
11) Find a new image and start the process all over again. "Squashed bug doesn't look that difficult. It'll be easy."

Insert title here.

Well, I got these two to the point where all of the paint has been applied. And I have most of the shading done. Now I have to do the inking and the highlights. 

Thinking about the I.33 image: I do have good quality images of the entire manuscript. I think that I will do scrolls based on every page over the next few years. The Crown gives out tons of Golden Alces for sword fighting and there is no reason why I can't slip an I.33 in every now and then. Plus tourney scrolls. Plus gift baskets and backlog scrolls for other Kingdoms plus the Hael and our neighbors. There are 64 pages and this would be the 2nd one I've done. I think that I could finish up all of them over the next 5 or 6 years.

With small text, like the original, they would make nice scrolls.

The V is done

My replacement V is done. I kept the same colors as the one that I ruined, but the green came out a bit darker.

I am a fan of the white vine style of illumination. All of the images that I have seen use just four colors: gold, blue, red and green.The vines are left uncolored and their whiteness brightens up the blue, red and green. Very easy to set up, very easy to paint and with a couple of hours of work, one can have a lovely initial, ready to be used for any type of scroll.

A new batch of scrolls

Sloane MS 1975, Folio 13r. I received a scroll with this design when I earned my Huntsman badge, a couple of years ago. I don't know if I'm going to keep the same colors, but I am not going to give the man a green face.Yes, he is supposed to have been poisoned by the scorpion but he looks like a zombie.

Another plate from I.33. I found good quality images of the entire manuscript and I plan on doing them all. Not all at once, but will have my choice for the next umpteen years. I think that they will all have the same color scheme. Perhaps switch the starting color each time I do one of these plates.

Finally, a nice L with diapering and the V that I butchered. Here's to hope that my ink behaves better on this one.

I give up.

I was working on a nice piece of white vine when I really messed up on the ink. It pooled and ran and made a mess. I don't know if my nib was dirty or if it was too cold, when I was working, but my meager calligraphy skills had failed me, on that day. Unfortunately, I have been unable to scrape and sand the ink off. 

All I appear to be doing is spread the ink around and I've removing too much of the paper.

I used an X-acto knife, white emory foam and metal grade sand paper. I'm removing layers of paper but it appears that the ink has soaked in very deep. Maybe I can cut out the illumination and paste it onto another piece of paper. I started on re-doing this initial, because I liked how it turned out.