Catching Up

Wow!  It's been three years since I've updated this "new" blog.  Life just got in the way.  The scroll I had made for the children's tournament for Winter Revel won!  And I was told it became a pre-print.  Meaning, they are reproducing my scroll for their tournaments. 

I had so much fun creating that scroll, but looking back now, I see so many things that I would have done different.  😀 

Since then, I had a major surgery that put me down for a year for recovery.  Then on the year mark from that, I had to have my gallbladder removed which put me down for another couple of months for healing.  After that we closed on our new house and we moved into a new house.  I am just getting my craft room set back up.  And can't wait to start creating again. 

Of course, I need to create a new wardrobe for me and update Russ' garb, but then I can start being crafty with the scrolls.  It's all a work in progress, but we'll get there. 

Finished Revel Scroll

So its the day after the event so I'll post the finished product.  I had to send this scroll in since I couldn't make it to the event.  I'm still waiting to hear some critiques and suggestions for future scroll making. 

I did make one small change before sending it.  One each of the kids bodies I made small snowball splats. 

The beginnings of a scroll

I said this blog would be about my SCA journey, so here's the first post:

There was a kingdom wide call out for Christmas/Yule themed scrolls for an event that the Barony of Axemore is hosting called Christmas Revel.  They asked for a ready made scroll and just an inked copy to make into pre-prints.  They have so many scrolls that you could choose from that I seriously had to pair down what I was going to make.

First up was research.  I've always wanted to make scrolls because I would see these illuminated manuscripts and just fall in love with the idea of recreating them.  So I took to the Internet and good ol' Google and searched for border patterns and pictures from already existing manuscripts.  These are the three inspiring images that I found.  One is for youth combat, one is for heavy fighting, and one can be versatile in either A&S champion or rapier.

"Snowball Fight" (Flemish c. 1560)  Walters Art Museum W.425.12

Bruges manuscript, Royal 17 F. II, folio 116v

Fresco depicting January at Castello Buonconsiglio, Trento, Italy, c. 1405-1410.

Next came laying out the scroll.  It is best to leave a one inch border all around the scroll to make framing easier.  So I draw out (in pencil...always in lightest pencil) a frame to work in.  I then had to make the decision of what border I wanted.  I chose to do a mix between two (because really who can decide between two favorites.) 

You can faintly see the outline of pencil for the framing.

My next step was taking inspiration from the chosen manuscript and making it my own.  I included elements of it and left out others as to not clutter the design.

Final step in beginning design is to ink the scroll.  This provides a way to clean up your pencil marks and provides a clean base for painting the scroll.

Just as a general rule (and because I'm just beginning calligraphy) it's always a good idea to practice your wording to make sure it will fit.  As you can see below I need to tighten up my spacing in the beginning and add in some little tweaks before I put pen to my scroll.  Some artists put their wording on long before they even start the design, but I like to see how a scroll is going to shape up before I start thinking about the words.  I had originally decided this scroll was going to be an A&S champion scroll until the childlike snowflakes above called to me for loving children to play below them.  

Beginnings

I've been mulling for awhile on whether to start a different blog or not.  I used to blog here and it was just my thoughts, and rants, and questions and various other things that I just routinely thought about.  But my new blog I wanted to try to focus on my SCA adventures with the occasional regular life post thrown in.  So today I decided to bite the bullet and create it.  (Mainly because when I deleted a long ago and far away email address I had no way to access the old blog.)  Hence, the new blog with a simple title...My Journey.

In the coming blogs I will tell about my most recent event...Diamond Wars.  And layout some projects that I am hoping to either start learning about or finish.