Adventures in White-Work

War of the Roses was this past weekend and I had a scroll go out. Unfortunately we were unable to make it but I saw a couple of pictures of the AoA recipient with the scroll I made for them and they looked happy with it. And I was told that my scroll was well received at the event. I don't have any pictures of them with it, and I didn't ask permission yet to use one of the ones other people took, so I can't show you that, but I can show you the actual scroll and the process leading up to the final piece.

For a while I've been admiring some of the beautiful white-work that I've seen around; some of it is so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to try my hand at it. And, this time, I decided to start small instead of diving head first into something that I had never tried.



To start with, I wanted to find something small that would lend itself to some beautiful white-work, something that would push me to try a little harder but while still not being unattainable.

I found my inspiration in the NY Met online collection, a beautiful French manuscript leaf circa 1290 that can be found here (and shown below). And although the original source piece is of a 'D' I decided to go with a 'B' for this particular piece.

I started with the traditional pencil and paper, transferred the draft onto Bristol and inked it in using an ink dip pen.

Pen and ink on Bristol

Once that was done I set about getting all the colors together that I would need. Which, you would be surprised with how many different ones were needed. Especially with the different shading needed for the white-work.

When I finally got the colors all situated, it was time for the REALLY fun part. The actual painting. First the gold, because there weren't as many spots for it, then the blue and all that white-work and finally the red and all it's white-work. By the time I came to the actual white-work I was so worried that I would somehow screw it up, I'd mess something up or what not, and have to start all over again.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

In two of the three pictures above the the red paint inside the B isn't completely dry but I wanted to remember to take a picture of it before I moved on to the white work

Once all of the white-work and everything else was completed, the scroll was on it's way to Mistress Nataliia for calligraphy. As I'm in the process of still learning calligraphy it was best to let someone with an infinitely better hand do that part.

And, here is the completed piece.
AoA recipient: Cedar Barefoot
Calligraphy: Mistress Nataliia Anastasiia Evgenova
Illumination: Mýrún Leifsdóttir (Me)