County scroll, part 18: final

I admit, it has been a bit since my last post; other commitments, plus a bit of unwillingness to sit at the table, kept me from getting any work done. But! Over the past two or three days, I've finally gotten back into it, finished the outlining, and purchased the semiprecious gemstones that will go in the four corners of the figure. All that is left for me to do is glue the stones in place, and I will be finished. 

First, I needed to finish coloring in the right hand border. I used strips of every color in the palette, but the palette was so limited that I ended up repeating a couple of colors. After that, I worked the outlining in stages over a period of three days. Every bend in every knot, every bit of gold, silver, or copper, it all got outlined. And to be fair, it was less of a slog than I feared it would be, but I'm still glad I broke up the work. 

It's always so neat to me to see the way each step of the process adds a little bit more to the overall effect of the piece. 

Here it is with the border about halfway done. You can zoom in and compare the left side to the right, especially on the knots, and see the difference the outlining makes in sharpening everything. 

Above, a pic of the whole piece at this stage. Below, a little up close detail: 

And some more, again you can see the difference between left and right with the figure's hair: 

The one problem I experienced was that the white paint I used was a different formula from everything else (Doc Martin's Bleed Proof White, if you're curious), and the bleed proof nature of the paint made it actually resist the outlining and any attempts to paint over it. Remember earlier, when I accidentally painted white over one of the eyes? Yeah. Trying to correct that was surprisingly difficult. If you look closely at the left eye you can see where the line is a little ragged. That's from the brown paint physically beading up rather than going down in a nice smooth line over the white. 

 

Once again, a well behaved brush makes life so much easier. Also good paint consistency, because you really don't want your paint to suddenly blob all over the place. I was well pleased with how both behaved, even though it's looking like this brush may need to be retired soon. Its point is developing a bit of a curve, which I can still work with, but I'll have to keep an eye on it in future. 

Middle Kingdom seal. You can see where the outlining around the eye gave me a bit of difficulty. Again, the paint not wanting to behave on top of the white. 

Finally, it was time to go to the local treasure house that is Von's Beads and Gifts. They have the largest collection of glass beads in the Midwest, and the largest collection of stone beads in the continental United States. There is an entire room devoted to freshwater pearls, and another set aside for tumbled stones and crystals. If you are ever in the area and decide to go there,  be sure to bring a chaperone. Just to give you an idea...

That's a 350-lb. sphere of smoky quartz, next to a number of carved stone chess sets. Yes, it's for sale. Von's is awesome. 

But back to the topic...

I wanted amethysts originally, because the recipient's heraldry includes purple as its main color, but in the end I went with polished ametrine, a blend of amethyst and citrine which is a yellow or orange stone. The ametrine just happened to be a bit clearer and darker purple, on the day I went shopping. You can see a bit of yellow on the tip of one of the stones below. These were just about three dollars apiece: 

I haven't glued the stones down yet (I'll be using a flexible superglue called E6000), but here's a tentative placement of them on the scroll: 

I'll probably change the angle of the top two stones so that they point inward, like the bottom stones are doing. But this gives you an idea of what the finished piece will look like. 

And that's it! I'll likely go to the copy shop and get a copy of this for my portfolio, then glue the stones in place, and then it will be ready to deliver for signatures from our area "king and queen". After that, it will be handed off to the recipient, hopefully during a "royal court" so that more people can see it in person. 

Thanks to everyone who has offered questions and comments on the piece throughout the entire process! I've appreciated your company and encouragement. 

My next posts will probably be about the next Calf to Codex project, "Codex 2," for which I will be doing some calligraphy and a very little illumination -- just some capital letters, one on each page. After that, look forward to me attempting not one but two Black Hours scrolls. 

Thanks again!