In September, a colleague of mine in the SCA earned our highest service award, the Order of the Pelican. She received a lovely official scroll through the usual channels, but I wanted to give her a gift anyway. And since I'd been on a bit of a kick with Black Hours pieces, I decided to go with that style for her present.
I ordered a small piece of black vellum from my supplier, only 4x6 inches, and got to work.
The pencil marks below probably don't show up very well in this lighting, but I promise you, I did start with a sketch.
The gold and silver Coliro paint behaved beautifully. You may notice gray smudges on the surface above; that's because I opted to pounce the vellum to remove any excess oils that it might have picked up from constant handling, and the pumice powder I used did not entirely wipe off. I was a bit disappointed, but the surface still is plenty dark enough to provide good contrast with the colors.
I was also especially pleased with how the wings on the pelican came out. (Yes, I know it looks like a swan. Medieval depictions of pelicans often did.)
After that, it was just a matter of adding in the colored areas, bit by bit. The red is above, and below are the blue and then green.
After that, it's time to highlight things, first with gold on the red, then with silver on the blue and green. I also added in one more blue flower that I'd missed on the first pass.
I love the definition that the highlights give!
And now it's time to fill in the fiddly bits, almost entirely in gold this time.
And finally, I outlined the border in silver, then signed the piece. The back of this piece of vellum was quite fuzzy, so I opted to sign on the front.
I've mentioned before that this style actually goes surprisingly quickly once you've got any animals or hidden figures finished. Since this border really didn't have any, the total time from start to finish was less than three hours. I knew I'd be able to do it quickly, but not that quickly!
Best of all, the recipient loved it. I was so happy to be able to make her happy.
My next post will be, oh, possibly my artist trading cards, or maybe something else. We shall see.
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