For THL Alesone’s first feast, she opted to recreate a multi-course above-the-salt/below-the-salt English manor feast, firmly within the Elizabethan traditon. In addition to doing copious research (that research earned her the baronial Arts and Sciences Championship), she commissioned a traditional menu card for the tables from my wife Annys and me.

When we work together, Annys handles the calligraphy, and I do the “makin’ pictures” part. Between us, we produced this piece – complete with multiple period spellings (or mispellings, as it were), in-jokes, portraits of Their Excellencies Bhakail and the Marquessa of Black Icorndall, and a portrait of the Artist as A Young Party Crasher (Hi!). For some reason, people now expect all of our scrolls to have a flamingo in them.

Closeup of feast scene

My biggest regret on this was that my plan to ink over the painted art failed miserably (at least in my mind). My actual statement was along the lines of “Well, $&*#. It was a fantastic painting, now it’s a ham-handed mess.” Everyone I’ve spoken to about this violently disagrees with me, though.