From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V4 #2 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Thursday, October 12 2000 Volume 04 : Number 002 ======================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with unsubscribe scribes-digets in the body of the message. Leave the subject line blank. Do not include any additional text. [scribes]: grisaille (long) [scribes]: Re: Grisaille RE: [scribes]: Quiet, and Scribal Boo Boos [Fwd: [scribes]: Quiet] Re: Re: [scribes]: Quiet - grisaille ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 04:44:56 EDT From: Fitchybear1@aol.com Subject: [scribes]: grisaille (long) In a message dated 10/11/00 11:55:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Oriane@web.de writes: << I'm very interested, too (jumping up and down in one spot). Why not do it on the list: Grisaille 101? >> Very little is actually written about the practice of grisaille, except that it was widely used in various artforms including stained glass, enameling, illumination, frescoes, and pottery. The common thread is that it appears to be a technique that renders subtle modeling of a subject in a gray scale, be it in gray or sepia tones. While I don't have my text on stained glass handy (I leant it to a friend's apprentice who actually is doing stained glass) there are better descriptions on technique there than any other source I have found. The description confirmed (more or less) the theory that I had developed from trial and error, so the following is my technique for rendering grisaille: On the waste edge of your paper, draw seven 1/4" x 1/4" squares. Using a 15:1 ratio of distilled water to prepared sumi ink (I prefer sumi to India because it is finer and has no lacquer but go with what you have), paint all seven squares with this mixture, let dry. After the squares are dry, paint six of the seven squares with the mixture and let dry. Repeat this process decreasing the number of squares painted by one, until the seventh square has seven layers on it. You now have a gray scale that runs from a light gray that resembles the color of a pencil line to a dark almost charcoal gray. Cartoon your drawing in pencil or silverpoint. I apply all ink with a 00 sable brush, never using a pen as the strength of a pen line defeats the subtlety of the natural modeling that results from this technique. Pick the areas that are to be darkest, and paint those areas first, recognizing that the gray scale will be shifting from dark to light. Always paint just one coat. Your initial pass should come out a light gray, about the tone of a regular pencil line. After letting the first coat dry, it should resemble square #1. Go over the area again with the ink mixture, but in a broader (wider) stroke, you will notice a change has occurred to your piece; the area you painted previously got darker resembling square #2 and the area that wasn't previously painted is now the color of square #1. You will continue to build the areas darker as more ink goes on but you are controlling the amount of gray ... obviously there are some areas that will be lighter than others, my suggestion is to bring those areas into play based on the tonal value you wish to achieve, i.e. when you want an area to be a #3 value, paint it during the fifth pass ( 7,6,5 ) this will help control the cockeling of the paper, and will also allow you to keep track of what gets painted when... It is my opinion that faces, hands and hair should not be begun to be rendered before pass #5, or even #6. It is important that you do the squares on the side for different papers, you can cut them off once you are through and you can note on them the type of paper used, so you can build a library of grayscale charts. For brownish colors of paper, I suggest that you adjust your mixture of water to ink from 15:1 to 12:1 to compensate for the darkness of the ground that you are working on. For sepia, use 18:1 for white papers and light vellum and 16:1 for brown papers and darker vellum. This method may also be used for underpainting a subject, especially if you are using a translucent color media such as gouache, or ground pigments mixed with egg yolk. If you are doing a piece that is used in an A/S competition, be sure to document the fact that you chose to NOT outline the figure in a heavy black pen, as you are attempting to imitate a specific style of illumination that doesn't require that step. Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know-JimBear =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:15:23 +1000 From: Mark Calderwood Subject: [scribes]: Re: Grisaille >I'm very interested, too (jumping up and down in one spot). Why not do it >on the list: Grisaille 101? That's a good idea, I'd be interested. Giles Working on four scrolls at the moment and wondering what happened to having a life... =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 06:27:47 -0600 From: "Edgar, Terry" Subject: RE: [scribes]: Quiet, and Scribal Boo Boos Greetings unto all scribes! I started scribing for the Middle Kingdom but 6 months ago. My first assignment came last minute and was for 4 scrolls in three days! I confess they were rushed but in my scroll marathon I made a mistake. I stayed up all night the night before the event working on these scrolls. One was for a higher level award and I was doing it on real parchement. It was coming along nicely. At about 2am... I realized the mistake I had made. I put the wrong name on the scroll! (I confess I made a zillion other small mistakes too) Since I was new, I also didn't know that only black ink is supposed to be used and I was using a blue grey color. This, of course did not make me happy as I still had one more scroll to go and now I was going to have to figure out how to fix this. Fortunately (or so I thought) I was doing it on real parchement... no problem I thought.. I will just scrape off the mistake and go back over it. So I went about the business of scraping off the ink. This was not easy and in the process it really roughed up the surface of the parchement. Finally the incorrect name was obliterated from the scroll. I got my pen and began to make the corrections only to find the ink was bleeding into the parchement. Frustrated and tired I made the decision to use a different colored ink for the name. The black ink (yes I did learn from this) didn't bleed so I went over key parts in black and put in the name in black. The finished product really looked period! In fact, the recipient actually went out of his way to find me and thank me! In the end all the work payed off. (and yes, I learned from this!) Just another war story! Rivka de Rojo Scribe for the Middle Kingdom - -----Original Message----- From: Christine [mailto:chfearon@home.com] Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 1:27 AM To: scribes@castle.org Subject: Re: [scribes]: Quiet, and Scribal Boo Boos Well I haven't done that yet, but my all time best was when I put the recipient's name in as King, and had him give the actual King an Award of Arms for serving in the kitchen... Eilianora Siobhan de Cassell Castel Rouge Northshield > > Another time I forgot to include the recipients name in the text at all! > But I improved the scroll as well as sneaking the name in by adding > commentary (there is a more correct term but I can't recall it at the > moment) between the lines of text - comments praising the kingdom, the > royals, the service that earned the award, and the name that went with > 'him' (so that it wasn't just the name). It looked more 'authentic' to > have the commentary, added texture to an otherwise plain calligraphy > hand, and solved the problem of the recipients name. > > And sometimes one just has to start over. Sigh. > > Enid > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. > =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 09:18:14 -0500 From: J Hetrick Subject: [Fwd: [scribes]: Quiet] This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------B2C31E2975A66139FD142EEA Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry for the misdirected missive. Wasn't paying attention to the address. Well let try this again. Any advise would be very cool. Thanks Jennet - --------------B2C31E2975A66139FD142EEA Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <39E541DC.52F717C6@sprintmail.com> Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 23:45:16 -0500 From: J Hetrick Reply-To: jennet@sprintmail.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Helen Schultz Subject: Re: [scribes]: Quiet References: <001a01c033fa$e13ebe40$03000004@s7n6m0> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It has been quiet, very strange. I finish a scroll for the Champion of the Arts and Sciences for the Principality of Gleann Abhann's A&S Faire. A very cool lady won and gets the scroll. I used the Bedford Hours to base the scroll on. Wonderful roundels to insert the various badges in. I was please with it. Not my best scroll, but I got to do a few different things. The Coronet wanted to give a Principality arts award cause it was pretty, but I had already gotten one. :) I have a question for the scribes out there. I would like to do better miniature people, particularly better faces. My little lady had a skull face for a while, it got fixed up a little. What helpful advise can you good folks pass on for miniatures? Any good instructions in any mundane art books or any to shy away from? Thanks Jennet of Tewkesbury Helen Schultz wrote: > > Hey all you scribes, why is it suddenly so quiet out there??? Is there a problem with the List?? > > KHvS > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. - --------------B2C31E2975A66139FD142EEA-- =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 07:56:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Suzanne Powell Subject: Re: Re: [scribes]: Quiet - grisaille I, too, am very interested. Posting to the list sounds like a great idea, if you don't mind doing it. - -- Suzanne - --- Hedwig Riebe wrote: > Fitchybear1@aol.com schrieb am 12.10.00: > > Busy scribbling! BTW the gentle who had questions regarding grisaille > contact > > me for advice on technique-JimBear > > =================================================================== > > I'm very interested, too (jumping up and down in one spot). Why not do it on > the list: Grisaille 101? > > Oriane > Drachenwald > > _______________________________________________________________________ > 1.000.000 DM gewinnen - kostenlos tippen - http://millionenklick.web.de > IhrName@web.de, 8MB Speicher, Verschluesselung - http://freemail.web.de > > > =================================================================== > To unsubscribe from this list, send email to > with a blank Subject: line and > unsubscribe scribes > in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in > the body. > ===== ============================================================ Suzanne de la Ferté Stargate/Westgate Kingdom of Ansteorra - ------------------------------------------------------------ Suzanne C. Powell Houston, Texas suzanne_powell@yahoo.com ============================================================ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ =================================================================== To unsubscribe from this list, send email to with a blank Subject: line and unsubscribe scribes in the body of the message. Do not include any additional text in the body. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V4 #2 ***************************