It's done.

Sometimes one just has to bite the bullet.

Never again will I do knotwork.... Until I forget how much I hate the style and start working on another image.

Look. Sometimes you either have to just finish the damned scroll or tear it up and throw it away. This scroll had been sitting, half complete, since January. I just finished it off, this evening, just to get it out of the way. I will admit that if it irritated me any further I would have thrown it away.

It's paper and time.

Paper is cheap and I have enough free time that I could have justified setting fire to this half-finished scroll. This scroll wasn't for an assignment: I would have lost nothing had I not finished it. Other than $1.80 for the sheet of paper and a few pennies for the paint that I used.

There comes a time when you have balance your hatred for a particular scroll against the satisfaction of  finishing the damned thing. If the paint had been one iota more persnickety I would have ditched it. But, once I had put down the red and the green, I liked the way that it looked. And, thus, I finished it up.

It's not the best thing I've done this year, but I am happy that I finished it. It will make a nice tourney scroll.

I keep forgetting that I hate knotwork

I must remember to never do it.

It's like egg foo young: I hate it. It's the texture of the over-cooked eggs. I avoid it, but every 7 or 8 years I order it at a take-away place, eat one bite and suddenly remember how much I hate it.

I do the same thing with knotwork: I forget that I hate doing it; I find an image that looks nice; trace it on nice paper; ink it; and start painting. Then half way through painting, the internal screaming starts. "Arrrrgh! Why the hell did I start this stupid thing?" All of them lines. It's enough to drive a scribe mad. Sometimes the screaming starts when I'm penciling or inking in the lines.

Now, I like how knotwork looks, when it's complete; but I hate doing it.

I been working on this scroll, off and on, for the last 3 months. At this point, I just want to finish it and get rid of it.

And I just noticed how big I made the 'D'. I didn't leave much space for words. Perhaps I'll use it as a tourney scroll. Something that doesn't require much in the way of words.

Things that you probably shouldn't put on a scroll

Things that you probably shouldn't put on a scroll, part n+1.

This is from a French book of hours. (MS M.453 fol. 139r). I would highly recommend that you avoid using this image on any scroll to be used in the SCA. Just don't do it. There is no occasion where this image would be appropriate. No service award. No martial award. No A&S award. Nothing. There is a line in the sand: on one side is what is appropriate to be put on a scroll and on the other is a dude birching the backside of another man.

Now, to be fair, the entire page is beautiful. Check it out:

If you, my fellow scribes, enjoy doing this style of artwork, please do so, just exclude the, ah, hanky-panky. I recommend replacing it with the badge of an order or the device of a recipient being awarded Arms. I put the link to the site where one can flip though the entire book, in the first paragraph.

Here's the weird thing. Weirder than a little S&M in a book of hours. Every other page includes an image of a religious nature (angel, priest, saint) or a seasonal nature (farmer harvesting grain, killing a pig, plowing) or a grotesque. Why did this page depart from the normal contents of such a book? Unfortunately, I do not read latin so I cannot tell if the, ah, monkey-business shown is related to the accompanying text. I somehow think that the text isn't about Cain and Abel. 

Cats in heraldry

How like a cat: sitting where ever they wish.

This is a coat of arms from the 15th century Scheibler Armorial. I love the way the cat was drawn at the top of the image. "Oh, look," it appears to be saying, "Someplace nice to sit. I'm not inconveniencing you, am I?"

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. 

Kaligrafy

When Art Imitates Life.

I acquired a new calligraphy pen and made a big mess with it. To be fair, I don't do calligraphy; I do kaligrafy. My penmanship skills are an affront to scribes who can apply ink to paper and make words look beautiful. In any case, bought a Manuscript brand cartridge pen with a refillable cartridge and it leaked over everything. 

Not to worry, fellow scribes, no scrolls were harmed in the making of this blog. I merely ruined a sheet of scrap paper and died my fingers a shade that can be described as "frostbite".

Things that you probably shouldn't put on a scroll

Things that you probably shouldn't put on a scroll, part whatever.

I'm half tempted to use this image for a brewing prize/award. It's from Harley 3140 and shows a teacher instructing two students how to examine a flask of urine. I am half tempted to use this and paint the contents of the flasks anything other than yellow. It would amuse me. I think, assuming that I would use this image, that I would change the background to gold to allow the figures to stand out. But I don't want a stream of anger to splash over my use of the artwork. I know that some people, if they find out the source, would shower me with hate: Gee wiz. I might, if I were to use it, just whip it out and wait for a golden opportunity of a scroll assignment.