For years, I used a cartridge pen, because I hated dipping to write each letter. But then I realized my work looked better when I used a dip pen. So I switched. But how do you find the perfect nib? I asked other scribes what they used. Several brands were offered, especially Mitchell and the easily found…
Recently I posted about my lightbox setup. This has changed slightly. I now have an LED light pad and I’m very excited about it. I wouldn’t have bought this but M. Rolf came to Lonely Tower’s scribes’ class and showed us his. I was so thrilled about it I went on Amazon to look for it….
“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, from the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript 1400s. Via Wikimedia commons One of my favorite scribal books is The Illuminated Alphabet by Patricia Seligman with calligraphy by Timothy Noad. I value it for its 12 oversized illuminated letter projects taken from five historic eras. These versal letters are used to teach illumination…
Saturday Calontir held it’s annual Kingdom Arts and Sciences’ Competitions in my local group, Barony of the Lonely Tower. After greeting people at the gate and signing them in I had time in the afternoon to view entries and take pictures. You can see the room’s one-third here. With Easter the next day, we had…
Happy Easter Everyone. With Easter and the Holy Week before it I wondered what medieval images I could find about them. I expected there to be an illuminated manuscripts image bonanza and nerdy trivia, but first I needed find how to search for them. As usual, Wikipedia provides a place to start. Holy Week is Lent’s…
Scroll creation is like cooking. You begin the creative process knowing for whom you want to cook and when you want to serve it. You collect the essential ingredients you want to use, calligraphy, paint, and support. Using medieval sources, you add a pinch of intuition, a dash of inspiration, stir them together hoping for…
Is Calontir’s Kingdom Arts and Science Champion the best artisan in the Kingdom? Is that the competition’s intent? In her May 2, 2010 post M. Eleanor Deyeson stated she believes the entrants must aspire to that before they enter. I disagree with my respected compeer. Calontir’s Kingdom Arts and Science FAQ page states: This is the competition…
I’m a Medieval manuscript search addict. I’ll admit it. This time I found the sexy way to find inspiration and information on digitized manuscripts. It’s Sexy Codicology I’m nuts about its enlightening blog posts and newsletters, which is how I first discovered Sexy. SC is an independent project that dives into digitized manuscript collections to find beautiful or intriguing illuminated manuscripts to share on…
As I grew as a scribe there was a time my illumination skills outpaced my calligraphy skills. In fact, they still do. Back then I wouldn’t do the calligraphy on a scroll. Fortunately for me my friend HL Astrid, a talented calligrapher, preferred lettering. So we worked together. To begin we understood the work would…