This was a set of scrolls commissioned by the founder Baron of Elfsea, Sir Arthur Le Fen. I had been wanting for a while to start doing scroll commissions to do something different than the kingdom award scrolls, so when I had this opportunity I took it gladly. 

His Excellency wanted scrolls that would fit the time and place of their Excellency's personas, 12th C Wales. That was the first challenge, because there is not many extant manuscripts from that time and place, and even less with digital access. But searching through the internet I found the Ricemarch Psalter, currently stored in the College of Dublin and digitized in the Internet Archive. Sadly the digital version available is in black and white, and I was able to find very few colored images that did not give me much information, so I decided that given the style and location of the book I would use the Book of Kells as a secondary reference.

Drafting and Layout

I started by taking some graph paper and blocking out a simple layout of what I needed, not counting the margins of the scroll. For this I use a 11x17 vellum graph block that has 1/8 inch divisions. This allows me to make a real size mock up of the scroll and have enough space for notes. I know many scribes that prefer to do this digitally, but I prefer to do it on paper for two reasons. First one Im not very skilled at using software like Inkscape or Paint.NET and second once I decide on an idea is very frustrating not being able to meet my own expectations. Because I know I'm not the best at drawing, making the mockups on paper allows me room to breathe an improvise because I can't truly fix my ideas. 

After I was happy with the layout, I drew the margins on the pergamenata and used them as reference to trace the layout.  The graph paper I use has the advantage that is slightly translucent, allowing the design to be be clear through the pergamenata when I used my light table. 

The next step was to draw the calligraphy lines. Thankfully I already had the text that needed to go into the scrolls so I did not have to worry about having too much or too little text.  Among my books I had two possible sources to use as reference for the insular hand: "Medieval Calligraphy" by Drogin and "The art of Calligraphy" by Harris. Both have good ductus, but comparing to the scanned images of the Ricemarch psalter, I noticed that the ductus in "The art of Calligraphy" was slightly closer to what I needed.

I did some sample writing using my favorite nibs, and I was happy with the result I obtained with the Brause Halat, which is around 1.5 mm wide, considering that these scrolls were slightly bigger than the standard size for our kingdom awards (letter size).  With time I've noticed that I tend to use my smaller nibs more frequently, usually staying with #3, # 3 1/2 for Leonardt or 2mm, 2.5mm for Brause. 

If you ever are curious, this is my current set up to draw the writing line. The long T rule is from Lowes and is fixed to the drawing table to ensure perpendicularity.  The transparent ruler has 1, 1/2 and 1/8th inch divisions and I use it to measure the height of the base, top and bottom borders of the lines to make sure is evenly spaced and straight. As I trace the lines I gently slide the page under the T rule using the lines already drawn to make sure the following ones are as parallel as I can. 

(write with your arm, not with your wrist). While doing his excellency's scroll I made a few mistakes (you can see them in the picture), but I was not worries because I knew I could scratch those out. However, when I finished it, I noticed that I had skipped a full line of the text, which forced me to re write the complete scroll. Thankfully her excellency's scroll only had one minor mistake in the callygraphy that could be easily fixed with some illumination. 

I was lucky enough that digital images of all the knots I liked already existed, so I resized them to what I needed, printed them and traced them in place. Then I wondred how to fill the blank spaces that were left in the border. This style of manuscript is incredibly busy, filling every possible space with illuminations, and I wanted to replicate that feeling as close as I could

I don't have art studies, and my color theory is lacking at its best, so I started to research the pigments to see if I could learn how to mix those colors. 

I know that malachite is a copper oxide stone. Copper oxidizes in two colors depending on the amount of oxygen on the reaction: blue and green but green copper oxide is the most common naturally. So I knew that malachite would have to be a mix if green and blue.

Ochre is an iron oxide, but iron also tends to oxidize red. I knew that ochre is a shade of yellow, so I guessed that I would need to add some red. This color stumped me greatly because it was too orange... until I did some reading and I found that I had to add some green. Though after the fact it made sense, why? green comes from copper oxide, and copper is a common find in iron ore veins, 

kermes and woad are organic pigments, the first one from a shellfish, the second from a root. I knew that kermes had to be a more purplish red, because its reputation of a "royal" color, so it would had to have a bit of blue. And reading about woad it was described as a color similar to indigo, which I know was a deep purplish blue that faded to purple when diluted. 

With that information, I started testing ratios and formulas, and this is the palette I decided to work with:

• Malachite: Vibrant green + cerulean blue (3:1)

• Woad: Ultramarine + light purple + vibrant green (2:1:e)

• Kermes: Spectrum red + light purple (4:1)

• Ochre: Medium yellow + spectrum red + vibrant green (5:e:e)

I also mixed some pink from my "kermes" and some zinc white. 

Note: The "e" in the ratio descriptions refers to a minimal amount, independent of the other quantities.

To be truthful, the progress of the painting of these scrolls was not very organized. I had planned to go with the borders first and then move to the achievements, but as I progressed I started to jump from one are to another, to the point that it would be difficult to explain in an orderly way. 

However, I would like explain some if the issues I had and how I fixed them and at the end of this page you can find a gallery with all the progress pictures for both scrolls.

• I made a mistake when I wrote in the versals of His Excellency's scroll. I made a mistake writing the "W" using a pilot parallel calligraphy pen. I tried to scrape the mistake with my exacto knife but it still left quite a bit or residue. My next attempt was to take a clean brush, dip it in a little but of water and use it to start damping the mistake, but then I learned that the ink of the pilot pens it NOT waterproof! Not only did the ink hydrate again, it started bleeding and running... I had to work pretty fast and change brushed consistently to ensure that the bleeding did not progress. At the end it still left a resiedue, less than was originally, so I had to paint around the versals to cover the mistake

• When painting the achievements, my W&N permanent white started to become grainy almost like a bad quality plaster, and when it dried it started to flake off on its own. I tried rehydrating the white I had on my palette getting the same results, so I had to scrape all the white i had used and paint it over using a different paint. For this I changed brands to Holbein whites. As a precaution, I also changed my zinc white

• When mixing the colors, I did not notice that the "woad" blue I had made was going to be too dark to use as base color for the achievements, leaving me with no room for a darker color to make the shades.  I also made the mistake of painting the black of the achievements with pure black. I had to scrape both colors and use ligther tones as a base. I mixed a ligther "woad" with the original color and some white, while for the black I used a very dark gray. It was interesting that when scrapping the blue, it left a pink residue behind which must have come from the purple it had mixed in