More of the same: gilding and writing on the book.

Next time - after summer recess - we'll spend an evening putting on gesso together. Or on second thought maybe the time after that. That way we can write some more, so we know where the gold capitals will be and we can fill in some of the capitals.

I've finished the first two pages of year 1 (1987), and used up 27 lines of text. Now there are 13 lines of text left over, so we need to make up at least 10 more...
It seems like all the text we have so far is that much too short, or more, and there are a few years where we have no text at all, or just a few lines. So we've discovered another bottleneck: the text itself.

To make more text, we're planning to use a wiki set up for the Kingdom of Drachenwald: (wiki drachenwald sca org).

The gold sticks well on the newly gilded page, but polishing last week's page is less succesful. The gesso is a bit uneven, in some spots the gold is coming off, and in one corner it even breaks. Maybe the gesso was too thick when Bertrik put it on, making it bumpy.

Weer aan de slag

After a break of several weeks we are back at the scribes' table getting back to the book.

We're thinking about planning, and decided that the goldwork and the writing are most likely to become bottlenecks. We're both tired, but are still going to try and get a little work done on these things. Looking at how far we got in the past months by just making a little progress at a time is hopeful!

The gold is sticking well tonight, is this the weather? We're not sure, it's warm, but is it also humid? Or was humid bad. Anyway, despite feeling jetlaggy, Bertrik is making good progress.

Starting up the writing again is not as hopeful. It feels like I'm back to square one and need to spend a few nights practicing again before I'm up to writing on the actual pages. How useful is that right before the summer recess starts...
How long has it been since I did the last calligraphy? Looks like the middle of April (the 15th is the last reference to actual writing taking place), so no surprise that it's gotten a bit rusty...

Most useful achievement of the evening turns out to be an e-mail to the shire about dance activity in the shire through the year to generate material for the book.

The blank scroll did make it to Sweden, but stayed in the bags unfinished. Event going with two small children leaves little room for things like finishing up a scroll...

rijmbijbel

This is the illuminated page I am working on for the blank scroll competition. In 6 days we are leaving for the event, and just now I looked at the digital image again and discovered a whole layer of shading that didn't come through on the print I've been working from. That combined with a whole line of kids outfits to be completed for the event, makes it less and less likely that the scroll will be done in time for the event...

Below is the link where you can look through the whole book.

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/exposities/rijmbijbel/indexNew.php#

Making green paint to match the Rijmbijbel page. In the pigment,

Rijmbijbel can be found here: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/exposities/rijmbijbel/indexNew.php#

kalkgroen - chalk green - lego green
smaragd groen - emerald green - nearly the same lego green.
Are these colors part of the medieval palette?

Terra verde with marmble polish and gum arabic. Previously made terra verde paint turned out kind of slimy. We're hoping to make it better by adding marble polish. It seems that it is still a bit slimy, but more opaque than the versions we made before.

Bertrik is doing goldwork on The Book. The warm gesso is polishing quite well. The surface is a bit uneven and in some spots the gold has not stuck. The next page polishes less well. It was meant to have more raised effect, but seems to have turned out too uneven to be polished very well.

I'm working on the illumination for year 1 and a blank scroll for the blank scroll competition at Double Wars.

Colors to be mixed:
-yellow
-green
-skin color

Na DW nadenken over planning voor het boek: stukje schrijven en te vergulden letters intekenen, dan een avond gesso maken en samen gesso opbrengen.

Tonight

Some time in the last week I had a flash of inspiration: how would the red pigment work with added filler (marble polish). Maybe the imitation vermillion that has always seemed to opaque will then suddenly be the perfect red paint. So Bertrik is making some of that now.

I did some work on the book; the illumination for year one is almost done...

Polderslot History

At the Summer is icumen in event Bertrik, Gerulf and Hilde did a lot of digging into old newsletters etc. to gather basic information for the book (what events we did when, who organised them etc.). Now we are emailing back and forth to fill in these bare bones with memories and funny stories. Working on the book itself we didn't get around to.