By our steadfast heart, skills of hand, and strength of arm we, þe incipient shire of Midland Vale, pledge our service, our artistry, and our prowess to þe Known Worlde, to the Kingdom of the East and to þe Throne þat shines upon us all.
To þe sovereign Omega and glorious Etheldreda do we, your subjects, humbly bid you welcome to our inaugural Tourney of þe Daffodils. We ask þat you receive þese gifts, representing our clout, vigor, and fealty.
Done þis day, April 25th. Anno Societatis XLIX
Wordcount 88
Words and Illumination by me
Calligraphy by Æsa Sturludottr
Spring is here
A-suh-puh-ring is here
Life is skittles and life is BLOG
This was the first scroll I had attempted since my health crisis and time in the hospital. The Seneschal of Midland Vale was preparing a gift for the King and Queen to be presented at our first event and I thought that a writ would be a nice accompaniment.
Since the stroke and heart transplant, I have found that writing and drawing became exponentially difficult. As such this was a large undertaking for myself on many different levels.
The first thing I did was to enlist the help of Æsa Sturludottr. I knew that calligraphy was beyond the current skills of my hands. Calligraphy has always been difficult for me. I don’t write so much as I draw my letters. So I can make beautiful letters and any size as needed, but to sit there with a quill in hand and make letters come out seems beyond my skill.
After the stroke, writing in general became extremely difficult. Calligraphy was impossible. I wasn’t even going to attempt it. Æsa kindly agreed to do the calligraphy for the scroll for me.
Based on Les Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne by Jean Bourdichon between 1503 and 1508 As my inspiration piece.
I feel that I captured the feel of the piece if not the clean lines that it had. I also omitted the animals. I wanted to focus on the daffodils.
During the creating process I remembered about a dozen helpful hints and tricks that many artists use, of course after I could have used the tricks. For example a good way to get a straight edge when working in such a manner is to lay down masking tape directly onto the paper, paint over it and then pull up the tape. This, hypothetically, should leave one with a clean, crisp line. And I was about halfway done before I remembered the trick.
I handed it to Æsa, who not only did a magnificent job on the calligraphy, she cleaned up some of the edges that I could not. I had given her permission to actually change the images and I am very glad that she did. She ended up cleaning up some of the spots that most upset me when I was working on it.
This is not my best piece by far, but for what it represents it will always be important to me. It was about getting myself back into the game of illuminating. I was also glad to be presenting it to Omega and Etheldreida. These rulers in particular are special to me for a variety of reasons, first and foremost being that they gave me my Award of Arms.
(Does not appear in the Gazette)
