Ok. I’m a bit too chicken to actually start on Lorenzo‘s vellum scroll without ever having worked on vellum before so I’m cranking out a Meridian Cross for Greet. She was given the award at Midwinter A&S last year as sort of a drive by in the middle of court and did not receive a scroll at the time.
For this one, I am working on a bit of vellum that Mistress Grainne gave me at RUM to play with. It should end up being a 5″x7″ frameable area size. The overall size will be a little bit bigger than that but not a full 8″x10″.
I got to use the quills that I cured & cut last Sunday. It ended up working out pretty decent. The hardest part seemed to be trimming it after it got dull and getting it back to the same size again. That took several (5-10) tries to get it right. It definitely writes best when the quill is kept at 90 degrees from the writing surface. I used the oak gall ink purchased several years ago. (It didn’t go as evenly as I would have liked so I’m hoping it will be better once it has all darkened up in a few days.)
The hand is basic gothic textura. The source style is based off of a 14th century English manuscript. The bees are extra. (Greet likes bees.) 🙂 The harp & calipers are extra also. (They are the symbols associated with the award & Greet likes harps & calipers.) 🙂