Original Scroll One

The stress of midterms is over, and Spring Break is just a few days away. In the mean time I have nothing to do but sit in my dorm room and watch TV. Remembering my commitment to the A&S 50 challenge, I decided to start an original scroll. I've done a few before for family members but I was never proud of them, the scrolls always missed that special something. After hours of searching google I found this image

and decided that it would be fun to paint. Also a few people in my barony have been not-so-subtly hinting  that I should enter something in either 'Kingdom A&S' or 'Queen's Prize'.  If I finish it in time I'll think about entering one of them, probably won't be done in time for Kingdom though.  I've become rather fond of tutorials lately and decided to a minor step-by-step photo demo of how I went through the design process. Also, its like a mini-version of my documentation.

My first step was to sketch out a scale version in my sketchbook. It took me about 2 hours to get my symmetry right and the lines where I wanted them. Here is the cleaned up sketch:

My next step was to copy the design onto a piece of tracing paper:

Next step is to press the traced design into the bristol board. I used an 11x14 piece of bristol board for the design as I had a full pad of it. The traced design comes out very light so I had to carefully retrace the lines and erase any smudges:

 Here is a close up of the bristol board design:

Here is an image of all three drawing (left: original sketch; top right: bristol board; bottom right: tracing paper):

Once I was satisfied with the final sketch, I then went over the design again with a black 0.45mm  Micron archival pen and added details:

Here is the final product:

I was going to paint it, but one of my SCA friends suggested I hold off till I can show someone at the Scribal Symposium. He suggested that I could hand it in as a blank GOA or a possible pre-print. I don't think it's refined enough to be a GOA, but if they want it I guess it must be.

Since I can't paint this one, I'll just draw up a new design and paint that one.

To all my friends at the Gulf War, happy camping!

A&S 50 Challenge

Once upon a time, long long ago, man realized the concept of 'tomorrow'. Since that time, we have abused that poor concept, using it as a scape goat and always blaming it yet never  giving it the attention it so craves. Tomorrow I will get around to doing my documentation. Tomorrow I will get up to the nerve to talk to a Laurel. Tomorrow I'll.... and so it goes. 

As a good college student, one night I was dutifully searching the web for pictures of manuscripts instead of doing my homework. After all it was a Friday night, and what self respecting person studies on a Friday night? As is my new interest, I was researching medieval book binding. Along the way, I went to a blog, which linked to another blog which linked to a youtube video which linked to another video which linked to a blog which linked to an SCA page. This is normally how my research goes, sometimes I even get so far off on a tangent I can't remember what my original goal was. But anyway, this magical page I found was titled 'A&S 50 Challenge' and I just ADORE challenges. 

In celebration of the society turning 50 on May 1, 2015; Lady Albreda Aylese has challenged all persons to broaden their horizons. The challenge is divided into three parts: depth, breadth, and persona. Here is an excerpt from the invitation letter:

The A&S 50 Challenge can take one of two forms; either Depth or Breadth. The Depth Challenge is to create/do 50 of any one thing - make 50 pairs of shoes for your Shire, pen 50 scrolls for your Kingdom signet, cast 50 coins blanks, make 50 pieces of garb, judge 50 competition entries, teach 50 classes, perform 50 songs, or even write a 50 page research paper; if you want to take your current work to a new level, doing 50 of it is bound to carry you a long way towards that goal!  The Breadth Challenge can be about either trying new things,  (either completely new to you, variations on things you have done before, or even new to your household, local group, or even Kingdom), or about creating a complete persona package (things that your persona would know about, have, and know how to do).  Both individuals and groups may enter, and can choose to complete as many Challenges of either type as they please!

I plan on participating in the 'Depth' category. That gives me 36 months to create 50 scrolls. I am actually fairy certain I can make this goal, especially with the insane downtime I'm going to have in the summer. 

OMG. Just had the most random thought. The SCA will turn 50 ten days before I graduate from college. 

This epiphany does help but thing into perspective though. 36 months is rather hard to remember, but making sure I do 50 scrolls before I graduate is a much easier goal to reconcile (at least in my head it does). 

I shall most certainly be updating any and all information pertaining to my progress in the challenge here on the blog. If you decide to participate in the blog, please comment this message so that we can share in this experience together. 

On with the painting........