When I found out my friend Lady Philadelphia was up for her long-deserved Order of the Silver Crescent (the East's Order of High Merit for service) I was thrilled, and when I was asked to take the scroll assignment I couldn't pass up the chance. Philly had commented on my work before, and I wanted to produce a tour-de-force for her; my intention was to make her cry. >:)
I started with the text, which was inspired by period sources; it weighs in at 440 words -- quite short for a period text but since this wasn't a peerage (yet!) I didn't want to overdo it. The text is available here.
I next did the layout in pencil, and then I started the gilding process. I used the period gesso sottile I'd purchased at Pennsic last year, and laid down quite a few layers to get a raised effect. When I finally had the gesso dry, I sanded it gently with an extremely fine-grit emery board and then laid my gold. I used the Cennini-weight gold I'd also bought at Pennsic two years ago.
After the gold came the calligraphy. My hand ached so bad...
I then started to paint. The main illumination is based on this one from the Maciejowski Bible, depicting the oppression of the Israelites by Pharaoh. I tweaked it, of course, though my depiction of King Darius is about as close to reality as the original one is to Pharoah, and my little kneeling Philadelphia isn't any more spot-on. I also simplified the entire design a bit, leaving out two of the original figures.
The paint I used is primarily period pigments mixed with gum arabic to produce a period watercolor. The yellow background is yellow ochre, the blue is lapis, the grainy green is malachite, and the orange is minium (red lead). Don't lick this scroll! It's made of poison! The non-period pigments I used are my trusty Winsor and Newton gouache -- the dark red is Aliazarin Crimson (I don't have an actual red pigment yet), the white is permanent white (the 'period' white I have is just as non-period, since I haven't bought any white lead yet), and the dark brown is burnt sienna since I don't have a good true brown. The tans and beiges are period, though. I also used black gouache, since I haven't yet figured out how to mix a good opaque black from the lampblack I have. When I lightened the lapis, I did use the ground pigment rather than white gouache, though.
I'm very happy with this scroll. If I had anything to be unhappy about, it would be the shininess of my gold (not shiny enough yet!) and the fact that the order badge is kinda wiggly. This is one of those scrolls where I had to make myself stop, or I was going to mess it up with too much fiddling. It was also very fun to make!
Postlude
Lady Philadelphia seems to be thrilled with her scroll, and I got lots of compliments. The herald, as predicted, probably has a warrant out for my head now. :grin: Being Baron Ernst, he hammed up the reading appropriately and, after finishing the reading, announced my name with "... and the guilty party is..." His Majesty then made me stand up, I was applauded, and then he asked me if I'd read his whims. I was probably three shades of red by this time, but having read his whims I knew that one of them was "don't circumlocute." I apologized to his majesty and told him I'd read them only too late.
One comment I received from a scribe who I'd emailed the picture of the scroll to is that it "looks much better in person". I definitely agree.
