This assignment actually had an excuse to be finished just under the wire, since it began life as a completely different award for a completely different person. We took that in stride, though, and put the other info aside like we’d never heard of it. Hm? What other assignment?

Since the recipient for this was being recognized for lots of work, especially with children’s activities, I sought as a source something featuring either a) children or children’s activities, or b) something which could easilly be altered to show children’s activities. Eventually, I wandered past the teeny tiny book of hours which I’d included in my figure class last year as an example of grisaille, and realized that Jean Pucelle had included scads of street life in his marginalia for that book! Bingo! The corners of nearly all the pages in that book feature lovely little people doing anything and everything one could see in Paris in the mid-fourteenth century – begging, kinging, waterbearing, thieving, what have you – so it was a good candidate for this project. As it turned out, one of the pages of which I found good photos was very nearly useful as it was, so I ended up needing to do little fabrication, just a little cosmetic surgery here and there. We’ve recently come into a supply of clearanced Arches hot-press, so that’s we’ve been scribing on lately. It’s really really nice to work on.I still like pergamenata, but dang, ink and paint just love the Arches surface.

The text is once again based strongly on an example from Hubert Hall’s A formula book of English official historical documents, which I’ve used already for a few other scrolls. (I think I’ll branch out for the next one.) It’s just full of examples of royal writs and documents, and explanations of what each style was used for. I just can’t get over the language and spelling. 🙂

Right and true King and Queen of the Eastern Lands, Gregor and Kiena, to our offysers, barons, nobels, maires, justices, serjiants at the lawe, and present witnesys.

For soo much as we have been enfourmed by many persons that one among has, through true, feyned, or subtile mayens labored to provoke and excite the people of our Shire of Coill Tuar, and in particular the children therein. She has thereunto adjoynaut to stirre and conspire, by mayens and tools of herself ouned, to assist all manner of event staff, be she not named as steward hereself, to the hounoure and estate and common wele of our Lands.

We therefor wol and desire that, immediately after the sight of thies, we doo make Our commission of Sorcha de Barry to be one of Oure ladies at courrt, and thies Oure letters shall be unto you suffisaunt warrant that we award herr arms: barry argent and gules, a bend sinister cotised sable.

Yeven under Oure Signet, at Oure Championship of Arms, the fourth day of May.

Here’s my initial rough, with Annys’ excellent calligraphy (and my illuminated caps) already in place:

I may have gone a little overboard with the cap decoration. 🙂

The bulk of my edits were to make the elements more “works with kids” friendly, so a vase became a ball, and a lion’s head became a polished shield, and frontal nudity was removed. (I’m no Bruni, sadly.) Interestingly, the fact that no one pictured has legs is right from the source. 🙂 The other change was to the position of the monk in the upper right corner – I needed to have the text in place to make sure he fit around it rather than vice versa.

Next, I laid in the base red layer and the first ink washes.

More reds, building up a rich, interesting color (and hiding some of my edge mishaps), as well as many more layers of wash. The figures have definition now!

Lastly, I went through with the period brush and “lamp black” (W&N Ivory Black mixed with Burnt Umber to pull it back from harsh modernity) where I couldn’t use ink. I can’t get over how sponge-like gouache is when it comes to ink.

 

One thing of note, which is thankfully hardly visible now: I had a massive musculo-skeletal failure while painting the device, and my brush flipped right out of my hand – onto the scroll. Red paint splattered in a vertical path from above the top red bar on the shield, to the middle of the last paragraph, and my heart broke. However, my efforts at surgical reconstruction were both successful and minimally obvious. The funky bizarre chisel-knife I found at the Qmart, coupled with the scribal classes describing how to massage the surface of a completely ruined scroll back to something useful, thankfully paid off.

Takeaways from this project?

1. I’d like to actually work on producing grisalle correctly. I faked it using a technique I was comfortable with for this, and I think it mimicked the source well, but I’d like to work on the patience and discipline to build those times the way the original artists did.
2. Hold onto your brush, man.
3. It’s a fun simple pleasure to be a scribe who’s also herald. I double checked, but my initial mental interpretation for the blazon was spot-on. That was happy-making.
4. I need more examples of decorated capitals in this style, because what I had at hand left a lot to guess-work.
5. I would love love love to get to the Cloisters, where this book of hours is on display.
6. DUDE. HOLD ONTO YOUR DAMN BRUSH. SRSLY.

 

Red pencil, Higgins Eternal ink, Windsor & Newton ink and gouache on Arches hot-press. Finished size 11.5″ x 14.25″, artwork approximately 5″ x 9.5″. Based on folio 143r, Text Page of the Office of Saint Louis, from the Hours of Jeanne D’Evreux.