thladyagatha@home.com

- ------=_NextPart_000_0045_01C1676A.9B94D060-- =================================================================== 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: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 12:06:06 -0500 From: Randy Asplund Subject: Re: [scribes]: writing between the lines I TOTALLY agree with this. Faster writing is better. Real medieval scribes wrote very fast. I've seen the stats on how many pages of a bible they would knock out in a week of writing and it is amazing. Sorry, but I don't remember where I read that, so I can't point to it. Possibly DeHammel. Speed forces habit. Habit forces consistency. RanthulfR Karen Williams wrote: > > wyverns wrote: > > > And as with all calligraphy in any setting SLOWER is BETTER, even if you > > think you are already going slow. Practicing the hand at the right size > > is also a must for floating scripts (i.e., not touching the lines) > > I disagree with this. For some hands, to actually make them look period, > the faster the better, particularly the secretary hands. After all, that's > what they were doing. > > Branwen ferch Emrys > > -- > Karen Williams > branwen@ix.netcom.com - -- VISIT RandyAsplund.com To see a Universe of art ranging from Magic: The Gathering to Star Trek and Medieval Manuscripts Randy Asplund (734) 663-0954 Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustration 2101 S. Circle Dr., Ann Arbor, MI. 48103 =================================================================== 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: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 09:47:34 -0800 From: Carolyn_Richardson@prosystemfx.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: writing between the lines >>Speed forces habit. Habit forces consistency.<< Habit also forces personal style. Johannes made the comment that we should all be looking at several medieval exemplars rather than using the single one produced by Drogin or whoever. No arguement here but I do wonder how much of the variations we see in scripts that are the same hand are actually from the scribe themselves adding or deleting small touches. I know that the hand I generally use I actually learned verbatim from copying over my exemplar many many times. Once I started doing the hand free handed, it has evolved over the years into my own version of gothic blackhand. Still recognizably a gothic blackhand, but you'd probably be unable to trace it back to my original exemplar. Even now when doing hands that are similar to blackhand, I occasionally backslide on a letter or two and do the blackhand version out of sheer "hand memory". Tetchubah of Greenlake, Caid =================================================================== 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: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 12:59:16 -0500 From: David Nolan/Kara Westfall Subject: Re: [scribes]: Shell Gold - -=>Am doing a scroll on black vellum using powdered 23K gold that I need to paint - -=>over solid ultramarine. Any tips/suggestions? Thanks - THLady Agatha of - -=>Tintagel It sounds like you're doing a black hours scroll, like the book in Painted Prayers-- I've done this several times, and left the acanthus leaves and other foliage black, painted the blue around them, and used gold gouache in a dip nib to draw in the design on the leaves and flowers. It looked to me like that was the method used in the examples I've seen in books. I'd suggest mixing your gold powder with a little gum arabic to make a paint. I've never done this, the only shell gold I used was already in gum arabic, so I can't help you with specifics on how to do it. Hope this is lucid, I really need a nap. Chiara da Ravenna Stonemarche, East (NH) =================================================================== 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: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:41:25 -0500 (EST) From: john j cash Subject: Re: [scribes]: writing between the lines Dear folks, Ranthlfr writes, > I TOTALLY agree with this. Faster writing is better. Real medieval > scribes wrote very fast. I've seen the stats on how many pages of a > bible they would knock out in a week of writing and it is amazing. > Sorry, but I don't remember where I read that, so I can't point to it. > Possibly DeHammel. > > Speed forces habit. Habit forces consistency. Some of us may now ask, which is better, fast or slow? I think the answer we have is, _practice_ slow and speed up; but don't do scrolls fast (or slow) without practicing. Slow and steady provides confidence and competence; speed should follow, forcing habit, which forces consistency. THEN do the scroll. Don't skip the steps. - -- johannes "To the Taliban from the American people: Give us Bin Laden, or we will take all of your women and send them to college!" =================================================================== 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: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 13:44:08 -0600 (CST) From: "Pixel, Goddess and Queen" Subject: Re: [scribes]: early Gothic examples? Merouda's website has a lovely list of links to on-line C&I images here: http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/2036/links2.htm Some of them have really nice early Gothic scripts, but I'll be lying if I told you I remembered which ones. ;-) Margaret FitzWilliam On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, E. Brown wrote: > Greetings, > > Can someone point me to some good examples of early Gothic script, > either online or in print? > > Are there any books that feature primarily early Gothic, that might be > a) readily available b) reasonably priced? > > This is not for a specific project, but of general interest, to get > exemplars to work from, and start my own model library. > > My thanks, regards, > > Genevieve =================================================================== 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: Wed, 7 Nov 2001 16:58:19 -0500 From: "Sally Burnell" Subject: Re: [scribes]: writing between the lines > >>Speed forces habit. Habit forces consistency.<< > > Habit also forces personal style Oh, I agree here. I guess I've been at this long enough now to where people tell me that they can tell my calligraphy from others by its "style". I guess I must've put my own personal "spin" on my blackletter and uncial scripts. I tend to think that Mediaeval scribes did much the same, because no two MSS. seem to look alike, calligraphy wise. Oh, there is definitely some similarity, but given how different each of our own individual handwriting is and how we all hold a pen (although I was forced by Catholic school nuns to hold my pen "properly" - well, at least what they considered to be "proper" in those days......................), well, each of us is bound to have something "individual" about our scripts. I've judged enough calligraphy and illumination in Regional and Kingdom A&S's now to where I can see this individuality in people's work. There are some scribes whose work I can pick out pretty easily, especially if they are frequent entrants in the A&S's. But yes, habit does force consistency. I know that from experience. But it also does force personal style, and I see nothing wrong with that. Adds a certain individual touch to a person's work and doesn't make it look so "done by rote", as it were. And that tends to add to their "Creativity" scores in my book, if I can see the scribe in his or her work. Just my 2� on the matter.......................... ~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. ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V7 #34 ****************************