Archery scroll, figures and outlining

On Friday, it was time to finally suck it up and start work on the figures:

I didn't take many photos of the figures in progress because I got on a roll and didn't want to stop. But I can try to explain the process of painting them. It's not really any different from painting the rest of the scroll. You lay in a base color in a middle tone of the color you want, so a medium blue or a medium purple on these figures. Then you shade with a dark version of the same color, go back and add highlights in a lighter color, and finally add white work and outlining.

As with the rest of the scroll, the outlining on these two figures is still not done in these pictures. In the planning for that step, I spent a lot of time debating whether or not to go with ink or paint to finish with. Ink can sometimes be too thin and bleed into the paint, making a blobby mess and ruining all your work up to that point. Paint, on the other hand, has to be applied with a brush and it makes the process that much slower to complete. So each technique has its drawbacks.

And here's the scroll, almost complete:

So all that was Friday. On Saturday I finally outlined everything. Here are a few detail pics to show sort of a side by side of stuff outlined and not outlined, especially in the "thistle" blooms. Even where the blue is very dark, a black outline makes a difference, even if all it does is clean up ragged edges a little bit. You can also see a bit of added texture in the dark green here.

Where the critters are concerned, the outlining really brings things to life! For one thing, now they have eyes...

The more abstract line fills now also have more definition, which is the entire purpose of outlining.

Then it was time for the filigree around the capital letters. Ordinarily this is done with a pen, but my "crow quill" -- an especially small metal pen -- was not behaving at all, so I instead had to resort to using one of my smallest brushes and hoping it worked out. Luckily, it did, I think.

The first pic is of the capitals before the filigree was added.

I love a good "before and after" picture, don't you? And below are the remaining initials.

And here at last is the finished scroll. All I have left to do is go through and erase the faint pencil marks that might still be showing here and there, and then it's off to the photocopiers.

Outlining took perhaps two or three hours, and filigree perhaps a half hour, so the total time for the scroll was... under twenty hours, I think? More work than I typically put into an award scroll, but I had more time to work on it and didn't need to rush. I really enjoyed it, and learned a lot. Practice is always good for that sort of thing.

I've got two more commissions waiting for me to complete, now that this one is done. One is a no-illumination Psalm, just straight calligraphy in modern English, while the other will be another based on the Luttrell Psalter. It'll look quite a bit different from this one, though, with a big historiated initial (a huge capital letter with a picture inside it) starting it off. After that, though, I'll have an open desk and plenty of room for more work to come my way!

Anyway, I hope you liked the progress through this project. If you're so moved, you can always leave a tip in my jar by clicking the "Buy Me A Coffee" button on the sidebar of the blog. And if not, that's fine too. Leave me a comment and let me know I'm not just talking into the void, here, and I'll be content.

Cheers!