Sunday, November 15, 2009

This Old Scroll



Actually it's not that old, it's just not one done in the last 2 years. But it is a favorite of mine as I love the Renaissance period and this has many elements I enjoy doing and seeing. This is a Laurel scroll, the Laurel is the highest award in the SCA (http://www.sca.org/) for the Arts. The lady this was for does wonderful calligraphy and illumination. Her heraldry (the shield in the circle, which is the letter O), is really great in my opinion. Almost every detail in this has special meaning to the lady it was done for. All the symbols are specifically related to her SCA life and awards. This is based on Renaissance manuscript pages from the 1500's , Italian area (Italy really wasn't much in the Renaissance period. The area we now call Italy was a series of Independent City States and the Renaissance really started in and flowed from Florence.) Anyway, this is 8 1/2 x 11, Acrylic on velum (animal skin NOT paper). The ink for the calligraphy (which I did) is Oak Gall ink, a period ink.

2 comments:

  1. Wow tristan, that looks amazing!! what happens when you mess up the writing?

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  2. Russ, that is the great thing about working on real velum and not paper. The ink does not soak into the velum and sits on the surface, so when you make a mistake you can take an exacto knife and scrape it off (carfully of course) and then just redo it. If you did that with paper you would have a mess.

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