Hey all,

Just a refresher You can find all of the LJ user Icon's I've made over here

Please do not hotlink. Save the icon to your computer and then upload it from there.
Enjoy
Please credit
and please let me know which ones, if any, you decide to take.

He's about to make a very bad choice.

Just being silly. Watercolor pencils again.
Thinking I might put it and the other one up for the Dragon's Horde Auction. (which would of course make them ACEO's)

Lunch? Friend? Your call...


20 minutes playing with water color pencils.

Soon this will become an animated icon, but for now it is still in its ATC form.
weavedancer is such an inspiration. She has the best counterpoints to rants.
Made this at scribble last night for the fun of it.

It is an interesting beast. I am working on collecting the bits for a costume accessory for the Discworld Convention. This involves having a clear mental image of what I want, and how much weight that entails, then going out and finding all the component bits that will work together to make the thing.
A couple days ago I managed to get most all the pieces for what will become a staff with a "sapient pearwood" cage hanging from a hook. The strait part of the staff was easy to find and consists of a piece of bamboo as tall as I am. The fact is that bamboo only grows strait at that size. This resulted with a problem that I have been mulling over for the last couple days. How to make a hook, a'la shepherd's crook, for the staff.

The answer revealed itself this morning while I was acquiring some more lining fabric for a different project. Wandering through the silk floral section of the store presented me with a piece of lucky bamboo. Not just any lucky bamboo, but its silk equivalent with a sturdy wire running up the center of the stalk and a marvelous leaf tipped end curled in a helpful spiral. Hey presto! I can take this stalk bend it to the precise shape I need and not have to fake the bamboo look to go with the staff!


Now to make a lovely birdcage for a camel and an imp out of the other bits.
You really ought to read the Discworld books if you don't understand some of the references.

Check out his full website

Works of art created from cut and shaped paper, some so beautiful and delicate it hurts.

They fit!
They love them!
Best call in the world:

Me: *sniff* "Hello?"
Traci:"Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God!"
Me: *giggle* "so they got there."
Traci:"Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God!Oh My God! They are awesome and fit beautifully. I'm wearing mine the whole time."
Me: "Wonderful, I'm so glad you like them."


It went on from there but you get the point. Reactions like that are what artists live for. Even the snot monster couldn't dampen the happy. Now all I need are pictures of them in the coats. I'm sure there will be a few in the Pennsic albums in the next few days.

This is why I claimed exclusive use of the Awesome today.

Here is the back view of fieryredhead's coat. This is the wool shell with the major design drafted onto it in tailor's chalk. each unicorn is 29" wide x 24" tall.


It is a pair of Scythian style unicorns combatant. My design.
I am really happy with the way this looks.

Now for all the embroidery.

the Awesome is now free to move about the universe. Thank you for your patience and freeing up of the excess Awesome for use.
[/PSA]

[PSA]
You may not have the Awesome today.
I am using it.
Tomorrow, you can have the Awesome.

[/PSA]

Progress photo of the embroidery on the large Grey Raven.



I've begun the couching work for the leg and hope to finish it this afternoon.

Linnet really REALLY enjoyed her first day of summer school at her new school. I have not seen her light up like that when talking about school before.
YAY!

In celebration I give you her latest drawing.

That is a big blue llama with a heart nose, eyelashes and a smiley on its tail. One big happy llama ride.

I love it.

I now have my very own work bench for metalworking, carving, and other such "create through precision destruction" sort of arts.

It is all wood, sturdy, the right height, fits in my newly reorganized space, and I have no fear of whacking it with a hammer if I need to. This is an extreme relief as the only real work table I had was my drafting table and it really isn't the sort of thing I fancy dropping a hammer on or gouging with a chisel. robomarkov was double awesome and made and attached a clear plexiglass shield 6 inches tall along the back and sides for me. This will keep the little bits from rolling off and keep the kids from leaving their junk on my bench.

I am all excited.

Especially since normal jewelers benches tend to start at $300 for decent big ones and mine cost $150 all told.

Front view, the clear shield can just be made out


Back view


For the curious, the fence is to keep the kids out of my space. It is the Border they shall not cross on pain of death.

Meet Sparkle Cat Shiny Eyes

My current production list. Some have set deadlines some don't, but I want to have them all done this year.

Roughly in order

- Fighting tunic and britches for Ed (Estrella?)
- Laurel and Pelican Scroll for Katrei (March 28th)
- County scroll for Cecilia (Stepping Down)

- Wooby coats for Traci and Curtis (ASAP after coronation)
- My coronet
- Outfit for Craven (before Mid East Feast)
- Kaftan for atensibilla need cloth and measurements (sometime this summer)
- County scroll for Duncan Ross design ideas obtained
- Laurel scroll for Wander
- Dragon's Horde auction gloves (begin once buyer is known)
- blanket for mom
- Cuddly naptime Kraken for Dorinda
- Kingdom scroll Commander of Queen's Grace (due Oct 31)

First clue: The gilding size (glue) I put on the page popped right off again when I went to burnish (polish) it.

glue... popped off the page...


Aaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Took the penknife to the page to raise the tooth of the vellum and then a kneaded eraser to get the last of the offending substance whatever it was.

Round 2.

I wanted to share the small portrait miniature. It is 1.5 x 1.5 inches



I am just insanely happy with how this one turned out. The dress is painted to match one of her gowns that I love. Click on the image for super close up views.

In progress documentation photo of a technique for shell gold.
the underlay allows for the enhancement of the brightness and temperature of the gold and masques any show through between the gold particles.



23k shell gold overpaint on yellow ocre filigree.
Takes a while to do, but the effect is worth the time.

The Pelican scroll for Katrei Grunenberg of Calontir is finished, and should be in her hot little hands as of yesterday.

The full album of photos

In the Album you can see the progression of work on the scroll from calligraphy to design to finish. After I finished the Calligraphy and gilding raventhourne was a fantastic help and did the base painting and design kibbitzing on it.
Here is her painting work
Click for a larger view

Now the finished scroll
Full size scroll is 8x10 inches, illuminated area is 7x9 inches, text area is 6.5x5 inches with 453 words (imagine doing calligraphy in 11 pt type and you have it). Gold looks dark because it has been burnished to high mirror shine. Completed scroll. The creature guiding the rudder of the boat is a Pantheon, sort of a deer with a fox tail covered in stars. She is seated in the boat in one of her german gowns. The scroll text calls for her having free passage up and down the rivers of the land and she is a prolific traveler to out of kingdom events so I felt the boat would be appropriate. The birds in the border are 2 pelicans in their piety, one of which is nestled in laurel branches representing her first peerage of the Laurel. The other 2 birds are the gold falcon of Calontir, and the gold swan which is a Calontir arts award.
Click for a larger view

The album itself has closeups of the figures in the border.
Cross posting to sca_scribes

Here is the design for the King's Sigil


Grey areas are to be colored gold. The sun in the interior of the B is colored like the new populace badge, with the now white areas colored blue.

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
~Picasso

Firstly we have the finished drawing for the border on the pel scroll.

Need to finish painting this week, and get it in the mail by monday at the latest.

Next we have my idea for Cecilia's Cyphers. This is it. She wanted music, and I thought that keeping to the theme of her county, which is Florentine, would be good.

The gray areas are intended to be gold. The text of the scroll will be just below it. I am still drawing up the King's Sigils.

Opinions?

Here is the border and the scroll so far. The illuminated area is 7x9 inches



Scribal shorthand - places in the illumination with red hatching will be gold leafed. In this case it will be embossed gold leaf with the birds detailed with cut in inkwork.

How does it look so far?
and yes I will complete the border with the same sort of design on the right side. Thinking of putting the ribbon in the middle this time, and another pelican at the top. The gold swan is for one of her awards the "golden swan of Calontir" which is an arts award. The thicker branches are laurels, of which she is one. The pelican is for her pelican for which this scroll is created. The gold falcon is for her kingdom of Calontir and is placed over where the cuts for the seal ribbon will be made. The seal is to go in the open frame at the bottom right.

I'm fishing for opinions here. Help. my muse is saying nasty things at me again.

That my muse is a mean beast. Around 8:30pm last night it demanded I scrape off the entire upper border to allow for the placement of a nifty new one that is lighter, less clunky, and certainly more fiddly.

*pats muse on head and feeds coffee*

Is a mean little beast who likes to hide all the good ideas when I need them most.
*waves fist at sky*

Here's hoping that lunch and Mason time gets the muse beasty back into a helpful frame of mind.

Whenever I start to thinking I am some sort of scribal fu master, yes I know that is what my laurel is for, and before I let it all get to my head. I crack open a few of my books on medieval manuscript masterpieces and do the calculations on real size and how many lines of text and all the rest of the technical details.

Blow my mind for a while on the reality...

And realize I am nothing better than an apprentice by their standards and am a total piker when it comes to fitting a ton of text in teeny tiny script on a page.

Then I get back to work.

But I finally have a pattern I think I'm happy with for my coronet.


The round in the larger panel will be an 8mm cabochon. I have marked the full footprint even tho in the bezel only about 6mm will be visible.

Per sumptuary tradition in Atenveldt:
9. Court Barons and Court Baronesses
Court Barons and Baronesses wear Coronets of precious metals, with simple
ornamentation and six points which may be embellished with spheroids, pearls, or
precious stones. The overall height of the points of the Coronet does not exceed one and
one-half (1.5") inches including the spheroids.

The 6 large panels will be 1.5in tall (just under 4cm) and the 6 smaller panels are 1.25in (3cm) tall. I am still toying with the idea of spheres on the shorter panels. The short lines dividing the panels denote where hinges will be.

Comments from the peanut gallery are welcome.

Edit to add some more design info: I was looking for feedback on the shape alone but y'all are detail hungry. *giggle*

Ideally It will be a taj-kulah remember this little project
metal - Sterling Silver
cabochons - ruby
hat - red silk
The crown portion will be hinged. I am planning 3 tooth hinges.

The detail design work will be in repoussé of griffins, hearts, and laurels elements of my arms and symbolic of my laurel. My armorial colors are Red and Silver.
my arms
Ideally the cabochons in the large panels will sit between the wig tips of the griffins.
The smaller panels will have the hearts and laurel wreaths.
Yes there will be dangling decoration in the front

But it is very cool.
The phoenix crown I made was featured in an Artisan Crafts article on Deviant Art. 1st photo in the 8th row.

*glee*

Went to the street fair on my own. Cruised the whole thing in 2 hours. Found my favorite jeweler that I bought 2 different rings from about 20 years ago on Telegraph Ave in San Francisco. Chatted with him about the broken band on my turtle ring and he says he can fix it for free. *glee* I still WANT, NEED EVEN one of these
*sigh*
Also found the artist I was looking for and bought 2 more prints. He does Cowboy art, but strictly with a #2 pencil and is simply amazing.

Now I get to decorate the Christmas tree, and do some more laundry. Sometime this weekend I have to wrap and package for shipping the presents that need to go out, and get a good photo of the kids for the holiday card.

New baronial fighting banner. Acrylic on Cotton. The last one ended up with ginormous tears in its silk self on the field. I felt the need to replace it because robomarkov is the banner bearer.

Latest little scroll. Executed in 4 hours from drawing to calligraphy. No I won't tell you who or let you see the name.



Detail of boars so cute

Photo by Jeff Martin
( Crown documentation behind here )

photos by Jeff Martin
( Documentation for Heraldic display entry )

The documentation for the taj-kulah (Amira's Phoenix Crown) is done! Eight Pages long, one appendix page, and one page of bibliography. Thanks to the lovely raventhourne and her Research Library of Doom!^TM I was able to put an official definition and term to the way I joined the panel pieces. It is a "grooved seam." Whoot!
The doc is printed, and a friendly reminder sent to Amirah to bring the crown to A&S.

I have the frame for Ianuk's achievement and will be finishing that task shortly. I love it when things come together.

Documentation and presentation for my Heraldic display entry for this weekend's Kingdom Art Sci competition is done, reviewed by and editor, and corrected. This is good.
I have a stack of books for the second document, and all the parts scattered around my journal and disc-drive. Tomorrow will be putting all the disparate parts together.
fun fun
Hopefully the kids will allow me to do it quickly.

Will make things happen. Because no queen, I don't give a hairy rat's ass who she is but especially the sweet new ones, should never be without pretty and useful clothes.
My queen, I discovered right before she was to go off to war, did not have a beautiful coat to fight in. This irked me. I fixed it.
Her new fighting coat.




Made of 2 layers of middle weight blue linen, with yellow linen sleeves. Blue and gold trim. The suns are gold composite leaf heat adhered to gold acrylic paint. They should put up with a heck of alot of abuse.
Dropping it off tomorrow. She leaves for war tomorrow night.
I feel better now.

First off lets all give weavedancer high praise for this stunning coat she made for Amirah, who is happily modeling it while giggling with glee and making other approving noises. It is hand painted silk taffeta with a linen liner that was dyed blue by weavedancer in a woad bath. Just lovely.
( oooh ahhh pretty! )

Next are the photos of Amirah in her crown. Again looking ever so cute and making approving comments like. "I can't even feel it!"
( Pictures! You wanted them, so here they are! )

Here is the Phoenix Crown
You know that excess Awesome weavedancer was sloshing all over the place? Ya... I sucked it all up.
( This is a picture heavy post. )

Final weight for the entire thing = 5.5oz (.155kg) feather light for a crown!!!

Is Done!!!!!

I will post photos in a bit. The hinges were the last bit and they are done and soldered and it looks like it will fit beautifully.

Glee!!!!!!!!!