Friday, October 03, 2008
Drat redux
After last night's scroll disaster I wondered what to do about it.
I rather liked the idea of the peasant with a wheelbarrow bringing in the missing word - but could I draw it? After a bit of doodling during my lunch break I decided that my artistic skills might not be up to drawing a passable peasant. I could do the wheelbarrow. I could do the handcart. But the peasant came out even more grotesque than is normal for a grotesque. Time for a rethink.
Okay, I thought, if you can't make it good, make it look ridiculous. And so, I present to you my snail:
Then why the drat? Because as I finished painting the snail I managed to get a drop of water on the main text. Not a good idea at all. In spite of my ever-so-cute snail, then, I'm going to have to do a new scroll anyway. Part of me is relieved by this as I still have huge self-esteem issues considering the worthiness of my work, and sending out something that isn't perfect is very, very difficult. Part of me is annoyed because I like my snail.
In other news, as I'm planning a quiet month (i.e. no flights off the Rock) I decided to go ahead and buy myself an A3 technical drawing board. It has a very nice wide ruler - ideal for all of those parallel writing lines - and even comes with a bag for storage and for carrying it to scriptoria. I've fancied one of these for a while but couldn't justify it. My current burst of scribal enthusiasm has given me just the excuse I needed.
0 comments
I rather liked the idea of the peasant with a wheelbarrow bringing in the missing word - but could I draw it? After a bit of doodling during my lunch break I decided that my artistic skills might not be up to drawing a passable peasant. I could do the wheelbarrow. I could do the handcart. But the peasant came out even more grotesque than is normal for a grotesque. Time for a rethink.
Okay, I thought, if you can't make it good, make it look ridiculous. And so, I present to you my snail:
Then why the drat? Because as I finished painting the snail I managed to get a drop of water on the main text. Not a good idea at all. In spite of my ever-so-cute snail, then, I'm going to have to do a new scroll anyway. Part of me is relieved by this as I still have huge self-esteem issues considering the worthiness of my work, and sending out something that isn't perfect is very, very difficult. Part of me is annoyed because I like my snail.
In other news, as I'm planning a quiet month (i.e. no flights off the Rock) I decided to go ahead and buy myself an A3 technical drawing board. It has a very nice wide ruler - ideal for all of those parallel writing lines - and even comes with a bag for storage and for carrying it to scriptoria. I've fancied one of these for a while but couldn't justify it. My current burst of scribal enthusiasm has given me just the excuse I needed.
Labels: calligraphy
0 comments
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Ginger and apricot
Work surprisingly well together. it's something that might include the words chocolate, apricot, ginger and maltesers, but I haven't got any further than that yet. It was based upon the tiffinesque recipe I got from F and looks something like this:
Apricot and ginger tiffin
Ingredients:
250g butter
200g chocolate
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp sugar
200g ginger nut biscuits, crushed to small pieces
250g chopped dried apricots
150g Maltesers.
Method
Melt butter, chocolate, syrup and sugar in a pan. Once melted allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then add everything else, mixing well. Pour into a greased baking tray (roughly 30cm by 20cm by 5cm) and put in the fridge to set. Leave there for 3-4 hours to set before turning out of the tin and cutting into chunks about 4cm by 2cm.
This does soften up quite a lot when left sitting in a bowl in a warm room. The best solution to this is to eat it quickly. :) It certainly disappeared quite rapidly while we were gaming last night - I certainly ate more of it than I meant to.
Today has been quieter. I started a raised gold versal as a trial piece, never before having tried to gild anything, but hit a bit of a wall when I realised that the gesso-bole I'd bought needed a top coat of something else to activate it so that the gold leaf would stick to it. Silly me... yes, I know that doing it with period gesso doesn't have that problem but making the gesso is a bit of a pain. I'll eventually try it but to start with I prefer to have something in a bottle that I can just paint on (for those with interests in this area I'm using the Easy-gild system available from Wrights of Lymm). So far I've done two coats of the gesso and it's looking nicely raised. The other necessities should arrive this week so hopefully I'll get to gild and finish it next weekend.
0 comments
Apricot and ginger tiffin
Ingredients:
250g butter
200g chocolate
2 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp sugar
200g ginger nut biscuits, crushed to small pieces
250g chopped dried apricots
150g Maltesers.
Method
Melt butter, chocolate, syrup and sugar in a pan. Once melted allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then add everything else, mixing well. Pour into a greased baking tray (roughly 30cm by 20cm by 5cm) and put in the fridge to set. Leave there for 3-4 hours to set before turning out of the tin and cutting into chunks about 4cm by 2cm.
This does soften up quite a lot when left sitting in a bowl in a warm room. The best solution to this is to eat it quickly. :) It certainly disappeared quite rapidly while we were gaming last night - I certainly ate more of it than I meant to.
Today has been quieter. I started a raised gold versal as a trial piece, never before having tried to gild anything, but hit a bit of a wall when I realised that the gesso-bole I'd bought needed a top coat of something else to activate it so that the gold leaf would stick to it. Silly me... yes, I know that doing it with period gesso doesn't have that problem but making the gesso is a bit of a pain. I'll eventually try it but to start with I prefer to have something in a bottle that I can just paint on (for those with interests in this area I'm using the Easy-gild system available from Wrights of Lymm). So far I've done two coats of the gesso and it's looking nicely raised. The other necessities should arrive this week so hopefully I'll get to gild and finish it next weekend.
Labels: calligraphy, recipes
0 comments