Mixed drawing/painting/illuminating news

Good news: jpgsawyer  and edith_hedingham  liked the finished box top. I think a year from now I could do a way better job, but perhaps I can offer to repaint when the current version is sufficiently worn. 
Robert did a splendid job working in an armet helm, and of carefully scraping the already-painted-in torse so it fit the helm. I 'powdered' the metal side of the mantling with estoiles azure to incorporate a charge from Edith's arms. Outlining the whole work sharpened up the shapes beautifully. Photo to follow.

Bad news: my much-anticipated watercolour course at John Soane's museum is cancelled. Sorely bummed. This was to be a day long session where the folks from Winsor & Newton would come to talk about the history of pigments and watercolours, and how their own brand was developed, and then attendees play with around with their lovely products. The founding of W&N is close to the time that Sir John Soane was active, and when watercolours developed as a sort of amateur art form.

Unfortunately, W&S are moving house and cannot spare anyone! Sheesh, you'd think they'd check their calendars before deciding on a moving day. Didn't they know I was signed up?

Good news: I have a week off at the end of the month. I've been very frugal with my annual leave, and I have a glut that I have to use or lose. So I'm taking a week to putter in museums and galleries and draw stuff, and I'm hoping Robert will take a day or a couple of afternoons to putter with me. I'm going to be one of those geeks you see huddled on the folding stools in front of a work sketching like mad.

Yesterday Mistress Nerissa came over to talk scribing and sketching. We walked through how to draw medieval faces, and how to paint in very very fine lines and borders, and she brought over her current project., a Laurel scroll for a friend in Lochac. It's on a huge piece of parchment - it feels so luxurious to have such an expanse of parchment dedicated to a single work.

We also talked through gilding, and I pulled down the Gilded Page by Whitely to compare recipes. Apparently in Lochac the general advice is to use a white-glue gesso, because it's the most resilient given the different climates possible in that kingdom - least likely to dry out and crack! This is one of the types I wanted to try myself. It's one that my friend Sarra Graham also had good results with.

There's a nice illustration in Whitely, that I wish was in colour (all pics are b&w), that shows how different the results are depending on the sizes/glues - first what the glues look like by themselves, then with gilding, then burnishing, and then with tooling. But even colour pics are terrible at conveying gold - it never comes out the way it really looks and cannot show sparkle very well at all.

We looked through the materials I have already - I have a sample gold pack from a friend, obtained years ago, plus some ingredients I haven't tried yet. ethnowoman , any favourite tips?

Bad news: I nearly broke Nerissa.

We got to talking about calligraphy, and I asked her how she did calligraphy lefthanded (answer: mostly from above, the same way she writes normally). Which led to '...yeah, but [learning a particular way with a turned page] -  that's real work. You might as well teach yourself right-handed.' 

I said, 'Uh, that's what I did.' Cue shocked look! 

She hadn't realised I did my callig Rhanded, while being Lhanded.  Apparently that's way hard-core.

She suggested I try my callig lefthanded. Can't say I'm terribly keen, having gone to the trouble of learning it the 'right' way - why would I learn to do it 'wrong'?

For lefties: I mentioned at the MG revel that there's advice in the Midrealm scribes handbook about leftie calligraphy, so check out the PDF.

This weekend my sweetie and I are at a Wallace Collection study day. Looking forward to it, including lunch and beer with Master Paul - never dull!