Annys and I produced a spiffy menu for last year’s Baronial Yule, and we were asked to do a similar job this year. Since Alesone’s inspiration was “an Andalusian and French feast, as interpreted by an English cook”, we spent some time poring over Andalusian manuscripts for our own inspiration. We eventually found a sample text which lent itself to having three distinct sections within the text, and an intricate illuminated medallion off to the side. Here’s one of the sources, complete with “heavy metal bands in Arabic” section, right in the middle.

In any event, we elected to display the menu in three languages – English, Arabic, and French. I’d like to point out that Annys knocked the Arabic right the heck out of the park. 🙂

For the medallion, I created an Andalusian-flavored fire-breathing salamander dancing in arabasque flames, within a border drawn from the medallion samples we found. The final piece was executed on Arches hot-press, with Higgins Eternal black ink, red and blue Windsor Newton ink, and gouache. Note: Once again, modern reproduction methods fail utterly in capturing the real look and effect of gilded surfaces. 🙂 I’ll put up the process shots in a bit.