Testing, dropping, picking up

Hello all! Let me explain the post title: 

I'm testing a new app to be able to blog from my phone. Sadly, Google's official blogging app is absolutely useless and they've barely updated it in two years. I expected better, but luckily there are third party apps that people have put actual effort into making work with the Blogger platform. You can still expect lots of typos whenever I'm on my phone, but that's not the app's fault. 

I'm dropping my novel for the time being. I've gotten stalled out at Chapter 16, where it feels like the plot is only finally just beginning. I got hit over the head with another fic idea, and decided to work on that instead, because it was more rewarding. I do hope to return to the novel again this year (hopefully), but for now, well... until I can figure out a plot I'm kinda stuck. 

And finally, I'm picking up on calligraphy again. I've been asked to do four or five new scrolls for people who never received one, some going back as far as the 90s or perhaps even earlier. They're all going to be pretty ambitious, stylistically speaking. I am posting from my phone at the moment and don't have source photos, but I'll be working on two scrolls in the style of the Sforza Black Hours. Another will be written in Irish Gaelic and decorated in a very fancy version of the Mac Durnan Gospels, a 10th century Irish manuscript from Armagh. There is one still on my list whose style is undetermined, because I have to talk to the client to see what she prefers; then the final scroll will be done in the manner of the Eadwine Psalter. 

As I said, I don't have source photos right now, but you can Google any of those manuscript names and get some images to give your an idea of what I'll be up against! I start mockups on the Irish one today.

And all that is in between painting heraldic banners (which I've neglected all winter) and preparing music for the Lafayette Chamber Singers' May concert, featuring all Canadian composers. Busy is better than bored, but even so! This is a lot to have suddenly land in my lap.

Hope you all are well! 

Heraldic banners

Well, with the epic scroll completed for Bran as of two weeks ago, and all the pictures posted from that, I suppose it's time to describe the next big thing I'm onto. Over the summer I feared I would be bored, so I asked my fellow reenactors how many of them would be interested in having me paint their personal heraldry, their "coat of arms" as registered in our society, onto banners for display. I told them that if they reimbursed me the cost, I'd order the banners, paint them, the whole shebang, with no effort on their parts unless they really felt like helping out.

Yeah, it turned out people liked that idea, and I ended up ordering a total of 21 banners. I don't seem able to do things by halves, most days.

As it happened, work on Bran's scroll, plus vacation, meant that I didn't end up turning the banners into a summer project after all. But, now that the kiddo is back in school (7th grade already, how did that even happen?), I've got a lovely fall project that I hope to have finished in time for Christmas Court in December.

Step 1, look up everyone's heraldry and get it sketched out:

  

That's almost all of them.

Second, take all the banners out of the package and pull them off their wooden dowel rods, and throw them in the wash. I debated doing that, but I wanted to make sure the cotton was already as shrunk as it was going to get, and decided that getting the size or other factory chemicals out of the fabric would probably be a good idea too.

Third, lay out the biggest banner of the lot and staple it to the table (luckily it's a pretty beat up table already) so it will stay nice and taut while you paint on it.

Fourth, sketch out your design. Then realize it's off-center and you need to actually measure things before you sketch, and redraw it. Sigh.

When you finally get it laid out the way you want it, it's time to start painting!

And here is is with the first coat of black completely laid in. Even though the fabric is white, I will still be painting white areas to give the fabric even coverage and weight all around. Otherwise I'm concerned that the fabric will be lighter weight where there is no paint and will curl up. Alternately, if the fabric gets wet, I'm concerned that unpainted fabric might cause the painted areas to peel.

I actually painted the second coat of black today, but forgot to take a photo of it. I'll try to get at least one or two more pics with the white painted on.

This one is a banner for a guy who plays as a Roman; in his words, the Romans didn't do subtle, hence he picked the largest banner available to order. I've got three that are a medium size, 18x28, and then seventeen that are smaller but still reasonable, at 13x20.

With any luck, I'll work on these a little each day and get them all completely done by December's Christmas Court. It would be gorgeous to see them all hanging up and adding a little pageantry to our event.

Eh, it's not as glamorous as the scroll I just did, but it's fun and it's something to do.