Another Scribal Retrospective

 What a difference five years makes.

Back in 2016 I made this following scroll:

Scroll # 272

I was, and still am, happy with it. It's inspired by Royal 6 E. vi, f. 396i. This past weekend, I made a new scroll based on the same image. 

Scroll # 470

Five years and just under 200 scrolls later and it is clear that my skills have improved. 

Scroll #272 was done on Arches 140# hot press, 100% cotton paper, while #470 was done on Fluid paper, also 140# hot press, 100% cotton paper. #272 was done with Reeves gouache for the colors and Holbein gouache for the gold. For Scroll #470, I used Winsor & Newton for the gold, and the dark red and blue. I used Reeves for the rest of the colors. 

For #272 I used some white blueprint ink that I've had since High School. No clue of the brand; the label was long gone. I liked it, it was thin enough to flow through a dip pen. I believe I used a glass dip pen for the white lines. Unfortunately, I had run out of this blueprint ink and guess what isn't used anymore? Actual blueprints. And the white ink used to draw on the blue blueprint paper. So, I tried a few different inks and, for #470, I used Winsor & Newton #974 white ink and, with advice from fellow scribes, different nibs. The W&N ink was too thick to flow from my glass dip pen and it clogged all of my calligraphy nibs and fountain pens. I had purchased a dip pen set from McCree marketed towards manga artists. The nib did lay down a nice white line, however, I will have to be careful to not scrape up the paint as I move the pen, particularly since the nib I used only wants to work in one direction. 

In the last five years I have also started to "dry brush" white ink onto the highlights. I say "dry brush" because that's the technique used for highlighting miniatures. Here, I draw a line of white ink and use a slightly damp brush to smear the ink where I want it. I do this in addition to my normal shading style, rather than just leave a white line. I think smearing the white ink from the lightest section of the object into the darker shades gives a better color contour. 

I do notice, with both images next to each other, that my hand was either shaky when drawing the white lines in the red 'C' or I was having trouble keeping the nib pointed the same way as my hand moves. 

I will try again, in five years, and see where my scribal journey will take me.