Say hello to my little friend!

I want to take this time and space to discuss my method of making scrolls. I fully admit that my technique isn't perfect and that better scribes do things differently. This is my method. This entry will cover my creation of a scroll inspired by the world's oldest fighting manual:  Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33. In particular, page f.5v. 

The manual is 64 pages of instructions of how to fight with sword and shield. This scroll was used for a Golden Alce (a AoA level award for martial skills for the Kingdom of AEthelmearc). 

I use the cartoon method of drawing, which is the following: 1) sketch or trace the outlines; 2) ink over the pencil marks you wish to keep; 3) erase the pencil marks; 4) color what you want colored; 5) re-ink the outlines. This method works for me and I find it an easy method for making scrolls for the SCA. I can't draw freehand so I trace what I need using a lightbox, then all I have to do is color in-between the lines. When I was first starting out, I used solid blocks of color within the lines, using black ink for the shadows. Now that I've done a few scrolls, I've learned how to use the paint to provide shading and highlights, but, more about that later.

Step one was to trace the image. I acquired a high resolution image of page 5v and removed the background and all of the text, then printed it out. Then I paper-clipped a sheet of Arches 140# hot press paper to the print out and put it on the light box. I only trace the outlines and major details, everything else I try to fill in using paint and ink. As I've posted before, I prefer the Arches block paper, particularly the 9x12" blocks. I find that the blocks are more convenient and portable and having uniform sheets (as opposed to having a large sheet cut down) eliminates some hassles. I also like having the scroll slightly larger than the paper that I will be tracing: I can work the image, or images, in Photoshop or Picture Publisher and then drop the elements into MS Publisher and still have a decent margin on the final scroll. If you can free hand your images and your layout, then excellent. I can't and I rely on digital editing of period images to get the elements that I want.

Trace or freehand your elements: I use a mechanical pencil with HB 0.5mm graphite. It gives a very fine line, doesn't smudge and erases easily. Once you have all of the elements penciled in, ink over the pencil lines. I use Micron black pens for the most part, but I have used red and blue pens for a couple of scrolls.

Once you have all of your lines inked over, erase all of the pencil lines. I use a soft, white eraser, but you can use any non-marking eraser. The eraser will remove some of the ink, giving you faded lines. This is fine; you will be painting over the lines and then re-inking them later. As long as you can see the lines, it's good. Once you have the lines inked and the graphite erased, it is time for paint. For this scroll, I used Reeves gouche. I like gouche over regular water colors. I don't think I'm ready to start playing with period pigments just yet, so I will stick to tubes of store bought, modern paint.

I dilute my gouache a lot more than anyone else I know: it's part of my shading process. The first step is to get a very thin coat of your pigment onto the paper. The idea is not to fully coat the paper; just get it wet and colorful. It took me a while to learn that the goal wasn't to fully cover the image with a solid coat of paper, like I was painting a wall in my house. The gouache is opaque and by using thin coats, we can add the illusion of depth and shadow. 

I work with one color at a time and I use it everywhere on the page that it is needed. With a page this size, with this many elements, I want everything to have the same consistency and for them to dry at the same time. I picked a medium yellow and a light blue for the fighters, counterchanged, because I liked how the two colors complimented each other.

While the yellow was drying, I applied a thin coat of blue.

While I was applying the blue, the yellow paint was drying in the pallet. And while it was drying, it was darkening, ever so slowly. Once the first coat of blue was down, I applied the second coat of yellow everywhere except for where the highlights would be. Someone (a mysterious scribal Laurel) told me at Pennsic, a few years ago, that in early period illuminations, the light source always came from the upper, left-hand corner of the page (at least in Christian documents, it might be the opposite in Muslim or Jewish manuscripts; I've never checked).

So, assuming that the highlights will be facing that corner, I make sure that any area that I wanted highlighted has the least amount of pigment. The edges will only have the one base coat and the edges that will be in shadow will have three, four or five coats. The more coats I apply, and the longer the pigment has been sitting, the darker the shadows will be.

Another coat of yellow, further away from the "sun". I tried to layer the paint to follow the folds of the fabric. This will make the final scroll look more than a flat, 2d image and provide a sense of depth to the image. If you look early period illuminations, they run from ink drawings with little to no paint, to elaborate images with many layers of paint and gilding. The images that I use have little to no perspective, which is good for me, because I cannot do perspective outside of drafting.

 

Two more coats of paint, both yellow and blue.

 

And another couple of coats. Each layer is adding depth to the figures

I normally work with my primary colors all in one sitting, at least the colors that I will be using for this kind of shading. And I normally work on several scrolls at the same time. This ensures that my paint will not dry up before I'm done; I hate trying to re-mix paint to get the same shade. While I was working on this scroll, I was also working on 6r of the same manuscript, using the same color scheme. 

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was this: do not try to make it perfect. With this style of illuminations, less is more. If you keep putting paint on the paper, you will make a mess. Now, I did make a mistake: if you look at the neck of the lower fighter, you will see that I had painted it yellow. I did have to let the scroll dry overnight and then spent some time carefully scrapping the paint away.

Once I had fixed the scholar's neck, the best that I could, it was time to slap paint on everything else: swords, bucklers, skin, gloves, hair and shoes. In keeping with the simplicity of the original document, I used the same brown for the leather and hair and used the same method of shading as I did for the yellow and blue, except that I only needed two coats. I did not bother to shade in the metal of the swords and bucklers; the paint was shiny all on it's own.

I used two coats of flesh tone gouache for the faces. The neck of the lower fighter still looks strange, but I decided not to mess with it too much.

I let the scroll dry overnight and then added a heavy line of yellow or blue to the right-hand edges of all of the figures; the gouach had only as much water mixed in to make the paint flow. This was basically a thick line of shadow to define the darkest edges of the figures.

Once that coat was dry, it was time to ink. Using the same Micron black pen, I inked over each line that I had inked before. This ink defines the image and by providing a dark border, draws one's eyes to the colorful bits.

The final step is the white work. On larger pieces, I would use white gouache at various levels of wetness depending on how big an area I needed to highlight. For these fighters, I used a white, gel pen, which I find to be more accurate. I highlighted the edges closest to the "sun" and any areas where I felt would be "shiny". I also used it to define the figure's faces and necks, providing some amount of detailing. It does not take much ink. The white ink also make the pigment near it appear to be much brighter, and therefore "darkens" the shadows even more.

Again, I had to learn when to stop. I could have spent a few weeks on this one scroll trying to make it perfect; trying to fix every little mistake. I could have spent days scrapping and sanding every spot where I didn't stay between the lines. I had to learn that it doesn't have to be perfect. And, after looking at period images, the ancient masters weren't perfect, either. I had to teach myself that perfect is the enemy of good and that the minor flaws can actually make the scroll look better.

With a little work, a scroll that uses only four colors of gouache and two colors of ink, can have a considerable amount of depth and color. And if one has the patients to paint and ink over the same spots over and over, one can produce a very simple scroll that can get a lot of "ooohs" and "aaaahs" when it is held up in court.

I'll get you and your little dog, too!

Another traveling archery range, back home and locked away. These killer lollipops, along with some other targets, made an appearance at Pax, this weekend. In spite of the poor weather, six archers marched out to the archery range and shot while being drenched in cold rain. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the range. Now that Pax is over, I can think about other events and things to do. I do have to replace one of my targets: one of the last of my cardboard targets. It got soaked in the downpour and could not be saved.

Ooooh! I had an idea! I still have some pool noodles left and I know they make snake skin duct tape. I can make snake targets. I just need to figure out a way of anchoring them to the ground so that they still look like rearing snakes and still be portable. Yeah, that'll be cool.

Period Lemonade

This evening, I sat down to make some Syrup of Lemon. When I got home from work, I had to do some car repairs, and I re-learned the valuable lesson that lemon juice and cuts and scrapes to not go together. I should have worn some nitrate gloves.

I was making the syrup, based on my award winning 13th century lemonade (based on the Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook) for Mistress Orianna Fridrikskona. I started with four pounds of lemons, zested and juiced. 

The juice and zest went over high heat while I sliced off about a pound of Piloncillo sugar. This stuff is sticky and hard to cut. I just put it upright on a paper plate and started slicing off chunks. The other half of the block went into a zip-top bag and was put away. My sugar slices went into the hot juice[1].

Once the sugar had dissolved, I reduced the heat to a simmer and let it cook down for about an hour, stirring often. Just a warning. Molten sugar is kitchen napalm: do not let it over boil as it will make a big mess.

Don't worry about the seeds, it will take more time to fish them out than you think. Just let them boil away: they won't add any flavor to the liquid.

After an hour, I poured the mixture through a strainer, which took care of the zest and seeds, into a measuring cup. I rinsed the leftovers with clean water and discarded them. The zest had given their all. I ended up with 350ml of syrup. As you can see, the final product is very dark. That is not only due to the molasses in the Piloncillo sugar, but because I had cooked the sugar. If I had kept the liquid at a boil, and boiled out all of the water, I could have made candy. Yummy, yummy candy.

The key to this syrup is to cook about half of the water out of the liquid by keeping in at a simmer instead of a full boil, and to keep the sugar moving. We don't want it to burn on the bottom of the pot. 

I let the syrup sit on the counter, and cool, for 30 minutes and then poured it into a bottle. The Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook does not give any suggestions for using this syrup:

Syrup of Lemon

Take lemon, after peeling off the skin, press it [to a pulp] and take a ratl of juice, and add as much of sugar. Cook it until it takes the form of a syrup. Its advantages are for the heat of bile; it cuts the thirst and binds the bowels.

Nor is this syrup mentioned anywhere else in the cookbook, but, you most certainly can dilute it in hot or cold water and make lemonade. I have poured this over pound cake (poke some holes in the top of the cake, first), and I think that it would be a good glaze on grilled chicken (I haven't tried it, yet), or just spooned into hot tea.

You can use this same method with white, refined sugar, but I don't think you end up with anything as good.

[1] Hot Juice is the name of my band.

Here's Johnny!

Here I am getting an early start. This is for a Pennsic scroll assignment. I have the wording done and now the illumination is complete. I need to scan it, and then calligraph it; I should be done before Pax. I can then hand it over, along with my Pax assignments, and it will no longer be my responsibility. I am a firm believer that the sooner you start on scroll assignments, the sooner you finish them and the more time you have to fix any problems. I've done this design before, so it is like an old friend... Only one who you paint and write on and it's really not like an old friend at all. But, it is an easy pattern with a small color pallet: Dark red, dark blue, gold and white, along with black ink. There is minimum amount of shading on it: solely on the creature at the top, and only enough to give the wings and head a little depth. It took me about three hours to do this scroll, this weekend; I was working on two other scrolls and watching Agents of Shield, and playing with my new cell phone. I was making a photo documentation of the steps that I use to make a scroll and I will create a long post with that process. I'll scan it, tonight, and post it to my Flikr account.

Ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?

Here we are. One full pound of pure, uncut, Mexican sugar. Brown gold. Tex-Mex tea sweetener. Piloncillo sugar that is. I plan on making a batch of 13th century lemon syrup for Pax and decided to get a full pound block instead of 2oz cones. Piloncillo is un-refined sugar, loaded with molasses and flavor. Mexican candy, like sugar skulls, are made with it and it adds so much more flavor than refined, white sugar. This isn't like the brown sugar you would get at the super market, which is refined, white sugar mixed with molasses and processed to be scoopable. This is a brick that has to be crushed, scrapped or cut up into pieces. All I need now are lemons. And when life gives you lemons, squeeze them in people's eyes and make them hate you.

Kneel before Zod!

My continuing exploits of scroll blanks.... continues.

Here is another image from Royal I.33 (5v). I was inking it at scribal practice, the other night, and speaking with my fellow scribes. I think that I will fully document my procedure, with this scroll. I already have pictures of the pencil layout and the inking process. It will make a longish post (or several posts) but I think that if I take the time to document each step, I can do a better job of explaining what I'm doing.

I did pick up another block of Arches paper, as well as a couple more Micron pens: I keep wearing out the tips. I only have one more scroll assignment to finish, and that's not due until Pennsic, but I should crank out a few more blanks, just to keep busy. I have no personal challenge, other than the I.33 one, at the moment. I do want to reproduce all 64 pages of I.33, but I have no time frame in which to complete the challenge. All I can do is improve my shading skills and see if I can't learn how to do gilding.

Oh... I forgot, I promised Zofia that I would help out with the Kingdom's backlog. I guess I'm going to crack open that new block of paper sooner than I thought.

My last two sheets of paper

I had two sheets of paper left in my block (I prefer to use Arches block paper: I only remove the sheets that I will be using, and the rest stays safe and sound) so I decided to to a couple of pages of I.33 (5v and 6r). As you see, above: the penciling is almost complete on both pages. Then I will ink the outlines and start filling in the pigment. Neither one is for any particular award or tourney; I just wanted to do them.