From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V2 #1409 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Tuesday, February 22 2000 Volume 02 : Number 1409 In this issue: Re: [scribes]: Gilder's pads [scribes]: Cutting/Applying loose goldleaf [scribes]: Re:Court scrolls - Re: [scribes]: papyrus ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:12:24 +1100 From: rmwarlow@hemnet.com.au Subject: Re: [scribes]: Gilder's pads For anyone who's interested... To make a gilder's pad; Assemble cotton wool, a piece of 1/2 inch plywood [about 6 x 8 inches], and a piece of heavy garment quality suede, together with a staple gun. Cut the cotton wool to 7 x 9 inches, and place over the plywood. Cover with the suede, and turn the whole thing over [so it's upside down] Use the staple gun to fasten the suede tightly to the board. Turn it over and brush with a fabric brush. It is now ready to use. Enjoy Marit the Wanderer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 23:20:42 +1100 From: Christine Robertson Subject: [scribes]: Cutting/Applying loose goldleaf I've been reading about "cutting gold between sheets of glassine," and I keep wondering why you folks seem to have so much trouble with it. One of my friends cuts bits with scissors between tissue paper, too, and I *really* must remember to ask her why...:-) OK, here's how I do it. I work on a slanting board when I am laying loose gold on gesso, although it is not necessary on the various commercial latex-based sizes which stay tacky for 24 hours or so. I have my book of loose leaf sitting next to the board, _below_ its level. I assume you folks get gold the same way we do, loose sheets between the leaves of a tissue-paper booklet, about 3" square? I use a scalpel to cut bits from the topmost sheet -- I just draw the scalpel across where I want it cut, and if it won't come up easily, pull a bit with the small brush (see next paragrah) or press down on that spot with the scalpel blade. If the whole sheet starts to lift, I hold it down gently with the boofy brush. I use two brushes when working with gold. One is my current used-up 3-0 brush, and the other is a lovely soft boofy brush, maybe a 4-5, with _very_ soft bristles. It's my latex-size brushing-away brush. The little brush I point in my mouth (it's been washed to hell and back, so don't gasp, and now is used only for gilding) so it's a bit sticky. The fine brush will pick up the bit of gold leaf by one corner once it's cut. The soft boofy one is for straightening out the gold sheet if it starts to crumple. I've never had a sheet scrumple up that I couldn't substantially un-crumple with this brush and _very_ gentle blowing. So, having cut the bit of gold, I now have it dangling by one corner from the fine brush. This is why I use spit, not water -- spit's _sticky_. I then hold it below the level of the slanting board with my work, breathe hot 'n heavy on the gesso a dozen or more times*, _carefully_ whip up the brush and float the bit of gold onto the moistened area. Once it's down, I slap a piece of used-up transfer leaf tissue (your equivalent of glassine, I think, but possibly more flexible) onto it to hold it in place and burnish/press it down with my thumbnail. In the past, I have then brushed off with the boofy brush and burnished at once with haematite or my $50 (arrgh!) selen-something (fake haematite) wooden-handled burnisher. If it worked, it worked at once. Mirror shine. No need to wait. I will try waiting on my next go, and see if it improves the sticking power -- but I doubt it. In my experience the gesso *would*, or it *wouldn't*. And the difference might be as simple as evening (no) or early morning (yes). I should explain that on plaster-based gesso I burnish directly onto the gold, and on PVC through tissue, and on latex, not with a burnisher at all. Brush with fine silk in a swift, circular motion on latex size, and not for too long -- maybe 20 seconds, or it starts to dull again. Another of my friends uses PVC size and burnishes with his fingertip, the bastard, and gets a mirror shine (mutter mumble). But returning to the initial thing of cutting gold leaf -- it's not really that difficult. The main thing is not to cut too large a piece (no more than 1cm x 2cm -- uh, 3/8 x 3/4" -- or so, and to work where there are NO draughts. Remember, even if your gold piece crumples, all is not lost. Place it down on tissue paper and use both brushes and _very_ gentle blowing, and you can probably unravel it again. Take care it's not near your book of gold, though, or you may crumple the rest of the current leaf while un-crumpling your cut bit! And don't forget -- gold sticks to gold really well. Your first go at covering a section need not be perfect -- your can always put more on. Anyway, that's my thoughts on gilding. I just got some litmus paper and am about to slake plaster to make my own gesso now. If any of you would like to see some of my raised gilding, there are a couple of pieces on my web page, http://goldgryph.virtualave.net/illumination/illum.htm Hope this is useful to some of you. - --Yseult de Lacy, OL * for keeping the mouth moist, I find something like a cup of hot chocolate is ideal. I damn near stick my nose on the scroll, and breathe open-mouthed a counted dozen times on the gesso. This seems to work in our climate -- but YMMV, of course. Chocolate is better than coffee for me as it is (literally) more mouth-watering. I also realise I've been talking about tissue paper -- I do NOT mean Kleenex, but the sort of stuff fine china and silver and glass are wrapped in when you buy them from good-quality stores. Come to think of it, what I actually use is the sheets the gold comes between, and used-up pieces of transfer leaf backing. Seems just perfect. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 06:10:42 -0700 From: Mary Hysong Subject: [scribes]: Re:Court scrolls - hello all, just home from Estrella and trying to catch up on a weeks worth of list mail, which is noticably less than usual, since many of my list friends were at the war too. Have read through a few of the posts about scrolls in court. Here in Atenveldt it's a mixed bag. For some background, I've been in the SCa about 10 years and have been a scribe most of this time, have served as Principality scribe and now Kingdom Scribe. I've gone, myself from a rank beginner, using watercolor on preprints to fairly accomlished using period pigments, though I still havn't had a chance to work on vellum. Many of the handpainted preprints used as training for new illuminators are given as prommisories in court for armigerous awards or as the only scroll given for non armigerous awards. Many of these are painted by Lady Darine and her Guttenberg School of Scribes. They have helped keep the scroll case filled and are a boon to releiving pressure on the rest of us who can then concentrate on other things. when I first began scribing we didn't usually have advance warning for awards. Some Royalty jealously guarded the names of recipients until 2 hours before court at which time we were busy in the ready room filling in names or even creating whole scrolls because there were weren't any blanks in the case. However, for a number of years now, the various Crowns have been very supportive of the scribes, try to arrange award srolls well in advance, especially for armigerous awards where the person already has a registered name and device, so we can do a final scroll and dispense with a promissory altogether. This of course doesn't happen where the person is fairly new and getting an AoA, but is a general course of events for Peerages and such. We are still occasionally caught short, especially for Kingdom awards which are only given occasionally. However, with the efforts of Lady Darine and her school, along with the increased support and communication from the Crown, there seem to be more scribes to share the work. Also, of course our kingdom has shrunk to half it's size, when Artemisia split off and the work load also decreased by half when the Principality was dissolved and a whole set of awards done away with. As a rule our Crowns have been very good about anouncing the names of scribes and illuminators in court, even on the preprinted blanks, and everyone ooohs and aaahs apreciatively. I think they realize this is small thanks to the many hours that scribes spend making scrolls. I have also had numerous people over the years seek me out to say thankyou for their scroll. And many people when they meet me in person will tell me they have one of my scrolls at home and thank me then. Yes, there will always be schmucks who don't care. Unfortunately we can't tell who they are in advance and give them something else they would like better than a scroll. As for the guy that groused about _only_ getting a scroll, I would say this: I once asked a Princess if she would like a scroll for the fighter rcieveing the Shield of Chivalry. She replied "No, the honor of recieving the Shield is enough." BTW some previous kingdom scribe did away with the Aten backlog list years ago when it topped 1,000 or more names. Currently recipients are free to contact the scribe of their choice to arrange final armigerous scrolls. However, I always try to let the populous know that if they make the request to my office there is no charge, as this is my service to the SCA, much as others serve in other ways. well just my two cents Mairi, Atenveldt ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 10:28:21 EST From: EowynA@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: papyrus In a message dated 2/20/00 9:24:36 AM, barons@niagara.com writes: << written mainly on >papyrus, as well as parchment. Does anyone know where I might find some >unpainted sheets? >> I got some from John Neal, Bookseller, the mail order book and materials people. If you are not getting the John Neal Bookseller catalog every quarter, you are missing one of the best book resources for scribes. Write and ask for a free catalog! John Neal, Bookseller 1833 Spring Garden Street Greensboro, NC 27403 also reachable at www.johnnealbooks.com Eowyn Amberdrake, Caid ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V2 #1409 ******************************