From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V4 #3 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Thursday, October 12 2000 Volume 04 : Number 003 ======================================================================== 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. Re: [Fwd: [scribes]: Quiet] - minis Re: RE: [scribes]: Quiet, and Scribal Boo Boos [scribes]: miniatures [was}Re: Quiet [scribes]: Another Method for Grisaille ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 13:51:23 -0400 From: wyverns Subject: Re: [Fwd: [scribes]: Quiet] - minis While not addressing miniatures specifically, I found the best book for learning to draw faces to be Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. (Sorry, I can't find my book and don't recall the author at the moment) Tips I learned through doing the exercise rather than from specific things said in the book: - --Faces don't have much in the way of lines; they are made up mostly of shades of grey or shades of color. Strong lines will give you the skull look or a very old-looking face, if you make a lot of them. - --A light layer of color as a base under any lines or shading will make it easy to add highlights as well as shadows, even with the simplicity required of a tiny miniature. - --Eyes, nose, and mouth are always even smaller than you think they are (or need to be rendered smaller than they look; I'm not sure which) and making them too large will also give you a skull-like look. Good luck! 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. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:24:00 -0500 (CDT) From: sburnell@raex.com Subject: Re: RE: [scribes]: Quiet, and Scribal Boo Boos First off, I never heard any rule that only black ink must be used on scrolls. You could use brown-ish ink like you see in MSS. and as well use rubrics (red ink) as was used in period on certain capital letters in important texts (thus our modern expression "red letter days".) Now, as for mistakes. Done that. Plenty of times. A recent Dragon's Heart scroll for Coronation a few weeks ago is a classic example. The recipient was a close friend AND a scribe!! So naturally, it HAD to be perfect! (The Dragon's Heart is the Midrealm's highest service award short of Peerage.) So toil away I did, into the night. Callig'd it first, and as I put on the finishing details of the calligraphy, without thinking I wiped eraser crumbs off of the scroll with my hand, smearing the ink on the bottom of the scroll. Exasperated with this stupid mistake, I waited until the smeared ink dried, then scraped it off carefully with an Exacto knife and a white plastic eraser, then with a burnishing stone, burnished down the paper fibres that were raised by scraping and erasing, then went back and repaired the damaged calligraphy. By the time I was done, no one could tell where the smear occurred. Next night: Laid the base paint on the borders. Being ever so careful not to paint outside my lines or blop paint in some bad spot, I worked painstakingly to make sure I had a nice even coat of paint all around. Got lovely work on my borders, then went in to do the historiated initials. Not remembering, owing to fatigue and lack of concentration, that the paint on the bottom border was still wet, I went to paint in a small historiated initial near the bottom of the scroll, stupidly laying my hand over the bottom border and smearing the red paint all the way up into the calligraphy. Once again, out came the correction tools, cleaned up the offending paint, repaired the damaged calligraphy painstakingly and went back to work, being extra careful what I was doing this time. Needless to say, up until the last bit of paint and ink were applied, I fretted. Worried. Cursed a bit at my stupid mistakes. Fussed over little tiny details. And finished the scroll with time to spare before the event. (sigh) Evening court at Coronation: Lady Katarina Peregrine was called up before Their Majesties Edmund and Kateryn, and elevated to the Order of the Dragon's Heart. My scroll was presented to her, and when she came back to her seat, she was crying with joy and hugged me and thanked me profusely for the scroll. She was none the wiser to all the stupid mistakes made in its production. She loves it dearly because it was made by a friend, mistakes notwithstanding. And that is the joy of being a scribe, making someone very happy. And as for all those corrections made: Arches 140# hot press paper is WONDEFUL stuff! It can take major abuse and correction like nothing I have used since I used to use Vegetable parchment in days of yore (which I have discovered since grows yellow and brittle with age, and to think how many scrolls I once did on it................sigh). And it's non-acidic, so it'll last for years to come. Mistakes are easy to correct, but you have to be careful and use a light touch, lest you too badly damage the paper. Done well, no one will be the wiser to all those "scribal boo-boo's" you made. And that is really nice to know, because I can hardly think of one single scroll that I have done where I haven't made at least one blunder. Even after all my years of experience!!! (20+ years scribal experience!) Saradwen Midrealm =================================================================== 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 15:16:29 EDT From: RenScribe@aol.com Subject: [scribes]: miniatures [was}Re: Quiet In a message dated 10/12/00 10:24:02 AM, jennet@sprintmail.com writes: >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 I didn't learn from books, so I can't help you there. Most of my scribal training is trial and error. The one thing that makes the biggest difference in my miniatures is committing to highlights and shadows (The shadows are a lot darker than you think they are.) Don't rush though, that defeats the purpose. Allow the paint to dry thoroughly so that your painting is crisp and clean. If you try to paint them in when the under layer of paint isn't *completely dry*, everything smudges together. If you aren't quite sure about placement, you can lightly make pencil lines where you want to paint shadows for the eyes, mouth, nose, between fingers, etc. Make sure the paint is dry before you draw the lines. That way you will be able to erase them if they are wrong. Two more suggestions: Practice painting people as often as you can. Work from photographs if at all possible. Hope this helps Eibhlin =================================================================== 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 15:58:32 -0500 From: "Helen Schultz" Subject: [scribes]: Another Method for Grisaille Hi Gang: I got very confused with Jim Bear's description about doing Grisaille, so I asked my apprentice to explain it to me. This is "her" description on how to do it... Jim Bear, please don't be too upset by her comments at the end... but, I felt they needed to be included here. I will gladly forward any comments directly to her. Her name in the SCA is Lady Kris Gilibari. Examples of her work can be seen on my web site under her name... http://www.netusa1.net/~meistern KHvS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Here is how I do it: > > I mix together a nice neautral black (lamp black or > vine black) with titanium or zinc white, until I get a > nice middle grey. I put the black, the grey and some > titanium white on a palette, with plenty of space to > mix more greys. I then draw out my picture and just > paint as if it were in colors. > > And I do not use ink because it does not appear to me > that ink was used in most instances; they seemed to be > using regular tempera, just in greys. Grisaille *is > not* sumi painting, it is not (that I have ever seen) > a build up of ink washes; this man is detailing a sumi > technique of painting. Ink is very tricky to use and > is not period for European grisaille to my knowledge. > I even have a reference somewhere that states that a > mix of black and white tempera was used, but I have to > look for that book. If this painful process works for > this man, great. But I would never try to teach this > method to a student, it would be very discouraging. I > am a simplifier, and I teach the simplest techniques > that I can so that artists will be inspired to try > them. =================================================================== 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 #3 ***************************