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After over 20 years of doing calligraphy and illumination, I have exactly one piece of my own work, my Award of Arms that
I did sometime around 1982 or 1983. Thankfully, my skills at doing this sort of thing have increased over the years, and
several years ago when I received the Crescent (Caid's grant level service award) I decided that it was time I did another
scroll for myself.
Here is the result. This was done in as period a manner as I could make it, with the exception of using some modern india
ink in the outlining. It is done on a piece of vellum that is approximately 9x14", with the illuminated area being 8x11".
The calligraphy was done with a quill pen I cut myself, using home made walnut ink (with thanks to the person in Aethelmearc
who sent me walnuts last year). The paints used were from dry pigments, mixed with water, glair, and a bit of ox gall and
gum arabic. I used true lead white, ivory black, true vermillion, spanish golden ochre, chrome green, and ultramarine. All
pigments except the ultramarine were purchased from Master John the Artificer. The ultramarine came from L. Corneillson and
Sons in London, England.
The gold leaf is 23.75K Italian gold leaf, bought from Easy Leaf here in Los Angeles. It's applied on a gesso ground
using gesso I mixed myself. In some places the gesso didn't want to stick to the vellum for reasons unknown, and those areas
are filled in with 24K shell gold.
| Full View of Illuminated Area |
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| Detail - Scorpio in the Heavens |
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This is a detail of the constellation Scorpio. I decided that since I couldn't fit the arms here, I needed something else
to fill it, so what better than using the typical calendar pages found in so many Books of Hours? My birthday is in late
October, so Scorpio, my zodiac sign, was the natural choice. I found a picture of the constellation on the net, and rather
than actually drawing a scorpion (a creature I frankly find kind of repulsive), I did the stars in shell gold, with background
stars in silver.
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| Detail - Upper Left Corner |
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This is a close up shot of the foliage design in the upper left corner.
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| Detail - Lower Left Corner |
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Another detail shot of the foliage, this time from the lower left corner. I'm pretty pleased with the foliage on this scroll.
While the colors aren't quite the same as they were on the period examplar, I think they work together.
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| Detail - Lower Right Corner |
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Detail of the foliage in the lower right corner.
| The Scroll Framed |
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| Framing by Baer Charlton |
Here is the Crescent scroll, framed up in its custom frame. The framing was done by Baer Charlton in Portland,
OR, who is a Master Picture Framer. He did this frame for me in exchange for the scroll I did for him (see the link
to that off my main page), and I may be doing his MPF scroll as well since the one I did for him was a replacement for his
Journeyman status of many years ago. Baer is an award winning framer, and does framing for museums. He estimates
that this frame would sell for between $4000-5000. It is entirely handcarved and gilded. He mimicked the scorpion
design in the top of the scroll in the top of the frame, and created the "mat" by layering linen and pigmented gesso (or at
least, that's what he tells me).
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