It's done so I can share a Midsummer Knight's Comic....?

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

Text for the Herald
Let it be known that We, Thorin, Dread Sable Lion, and Dagmaer, Fair
and Gracious, Sable Lioness have Created to the Rank and
Dignity of a Knight Our Trusty and Well Beloved,
Lourenço de Compostella and have made him the same on
account of his Chivalry and Prowess upon the field. Let all An
Tirian hearts rejoice as a new made knight and member of Our
peerage stands forth.
In witness of this day do we set our hand and seal on the  __________
day of August Anno Societatus 46.

The scroll design was done by HL Sannan the OneEyed of Hauksgarðr
Design based on the Galician  13th Century Manuscript Las Cantigas de Santa Maria Chansonnier
primarily elements from Codex E but elements from Codex F (the Florentine Codex) were  used as well as both were similar stylistically 

The reduction in size from the original 35X50cm or 14X20" was due to the size of hot press paper I had on hand.

 The color choices were based on manuscript color choices/schemes for borders and non-story elements
Other color choices based on reality and or arms of individuals involved. ;) M.Graham designer gouache was used for paint with colors being matched as closely as possible to those seen online in the Cantigas. Metals used were all sumi ink by yasutomo and were applied first and burnished.

This manuscript is considered by many to be one of the earliest forms of comic 'book' and as such, tells many 'stories' http://anthropro.blogspot.com/2010/11/medieval-comic-las-cantigas-de-santa.html
the story of this scroll is Lourenço's SCA journey to this point from the OP and his own words.

The first two frames are the AWW  July 2003 where he and the now Sir Godric ap Rhys (colors Sable and Or) held a bridge against an overwhelming number of opponents from the West. Lourenço was known as n and was awarded the Fury of the Lion for their courageous last stand at the bridge.

I messed up the order of the frames a bit when I was doing my cartoon under-drawing for this...but light boxes are wonderful things...

Next Ejulfbjorn makes the journey to 3 Mountains from his home in Glyn Dwfn, where he learned under the tutelage of Duke Sir James Greyhelm (the blue dragon wings on the boat to guide him and the 2 silver spears and the silver and blue shield in the viking boat) and Sir William Brennan (the black and red shield in the boat). Lourenço's own axe and shield are in the boat as well. Everybody I consulted liked the waves under these boats that were a very dark indigo with white swirls. But, of course, as Ejulfbjorn, was NORSE when he first got to 3 Mountains before his personna change, I HAD to have him arrive in a Norse ship with the proper warlike accoutrements from the people he had been learning from.

Next Lourenço is seen as his incarnation as a Stormgod, the Barony of Stromgard's defender, (with the white horse of his knight William Brennan in the background.) he is shown in the Eric in his own armor of his colors with his inspiration watching. In my cartoon above, this is in the second square. In the final it is in the 4th square. On Facebook I posted the pictures Lourenço sent me of his armor, himself, his lady and his banner so I had a chance of making some of it match his actual stuff. I checked the armorial for the James Greyhelm listing and Lourenço sent me the information on this first knight, William Brennan, so that his horse, and colors, could be added to the scenes. He sent me the link on Godric ap Rhys as well so I could add his colors to the bridge battle.

Checking the OP, I discovered when he was awarded the King's Favor and his AoA and so could try my hand at small likenesses of Tiernan and Miranda. They aren't great, but hopefully aren't insulting and they get the spirit of the point across. The last panels are Lourenço after he received his King's Favor from King Tiernan, also receiving his Award of Arms from King Tiernan and Queen Miranda.

And in the final panel, Lourenço is put on vigil and is seen in a vigil chapel with his head bare and his weapons outside the door. The shield division was taken from Lourenço's device that is in submission, as are the colors of the surcoat. The surcoat style is from the manuscript. The wolves and bears at the box crossings are from his proposed arms. The banner on the historated initial is similar to one he carries in reality as a war banner.

I sent a few links with the information about the scroll so if the recipient was interested he could do more research:  http://www.edilan.es/hojas/0002e.htm
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/illuman/12_08.html

And I added a few cautions from scribes I've learned over the last few months. :D

This scroll is hot pressed paper and a water soluble paint with waterproof ink, 

BUT please,

realize  over 20 hours of research went into its creation, 

                       plus 6 hours of calligraphy

                       plus 15 hours of underdrawing

                    then an additional 70 hours of illumination (painting)

That is over a hundred hours of an artisan's time. THIS artisan's time...Whether you like, hate or are indifferent to the product, 

please don't:

fold, roll, or sit on it where other scribes, or I, can see you do it....it discourages us all, and makes us all feel unappreciated

sweat, drip, cry, or let rain hit the paint. It will smear and ruin the painting and all those hours will be for naught.

Please don't store it on a dashboard in the sun, the wax on the seal will melt...but it will ride home there fairly well. ;D

Please do: hold it by its edges, keep in an envelop, and if you don't want to frame it...give it to your mother....maybe she'll want to frame it? 

Nothing made me want to wince more than seeing original works of art thumbtacked to a wall, or folded and slid under the recipient's rear for safe keeping.

Congratulations Sir Knight, and I hope you enjoy,

Lady Sannan the OneEyed of Hauksgarðr

I'd already managed to bung it up enough just because of my constant fight with depth perception while I was working on it. Just 2 more weeks would have been a luxury. I'm feeling whiny. My eyes are a constant burn and ache now. So bad I can hardly sleep. And my left arm, the one I haven't been able to afford the surgery on yet, was holding my ink bottle and managed to spasm into me juggling the ink bottle right over the top of the scroll in the last two days of production. Not just once, but twice.

I know it's just that I take on commissions as if I'm not disabled anymore and then act like I'm not and my body rebels. It's rebelling now. The pain hasn't climbed down the scale far enough for me to really sleep since I finished.



And here, my covering paper slipped while I was doing the flourishing Batarde Initials...The paper that is SUPPOSED to protect from stuff like this...and caused this by slipping into wet paint and carrying it into the margin. That little red blotch. There were a few other blotches by the calligraphy, but I expect those, cause I'm not so great at calligraphy. So one of these days I'll have a perfect product and have to find something else to bitch about. ;D

 I know better. I just felt so honored to be asked. I don't seem to get asked to do things very often so I hate to say no. But I need to learn that my body can't live up to these kinds of demands. My eye gave out 2 days before the scroll finished and so I had no depth perception trying to finish. Luckily the main calligraphy was done or I would have been toast.  As it was, the hand spasms caused some bobbles that wouldn't have happened it I hadn't been so tired that I had to push it. If I hadn't had to wait so many days up front to start. If I'd known even 2 weeks sooner it would have been much cleaner all around and I would have been much happier.

This has the ugly black ink bobble at the lower corner.

This is the same spot. It didn't clean up that well. Hopefully it will be matted and framed.

The worst of the bobbles he probably will never notice unless he, or someone else looks. They will be under a frame or matting edge. Others, I will always notice, I'm a scribe....gee, I will always wish I just would have had time to do that....

In this one my pen came down into the ship caption from above.

The pen marks, the ink, the paint..the bobbles, it's all part of it and there are ways to fix almost all of it so I didn't have to start over luckily, because I didn't have the almost 100 hours of time to devote to the project again.

The red splotch cleaned up fairly well.

I got thinking about it....how many armorers devote 100 hours or more to how many suits of armor they build? How often?  I know many scribes who put in this amount of time in research and honing their skills regularly. Others who don't as much, who just trace and paint, not as much researching into the era of the client, but wow....we're insane....   Maybe some of it is I just don't paint or draw that fast. ;D

My FB portfolio
My FB charters- medieval illumination I have done on other's designs

from an insanely puzzled goddess

Next time I agree to this short of a timeline....shoot me....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me... I always let the helium float that hand up and say yes. I know better. Dayam. I knew better when I did the 2 charters for Stormgods. It burned me out for weeks. My disabilities and helium hand do NOT mix. There's more than one reason I had to stay home from Stormgods.

I knew better this time. But I'd promised Eleanor a charter for this reign and it was ALMOST done...not quite...so the guilt hit and I figured, (and Kerryk said, "you've got 4 weeks"). So I said yes to my first Kingdom commission scroll. The knight was put on vigil at Stormgods and was to be made a peer at Sport of Kings.

I said yes.  Then I was a dumb ass and double checked Kerryk and the calendar and discovered that there was less than 3 weeks to get it done....oh, shit. So I quickly read through all those notes I had from all those classes where the experienced scribes tell you what to do and who to contact. And I sent the emails out and waited for responses....and waited.

Checked the OP and the armorial and didn't see any arms so I talked to the Wrangler, but the candidate seemed to think it would be just fine to use his arms since they were in submission and he'd been told they were sure to pass and he had received a "letter" about his name.

2 weeks later I got the final word after contacting and not hearing from Lion's Blood. Even though the Scribal procedures call for scribes to get wording approved through Lion's Blood...Lion's Blood doesn't want to see it, and since Lion's Blood needs to sign all blazons and emblazons they do NOT want any scrolls created with out PASSED devices or names or they WON'T sign it, PERIOD. I didn't get the courtesy of this response, but at least Sable Sable did...It should be fun the NEXT time somebody tries to actually follow the scribal procedures as they are written in the scribes manual...hmm....guess not too many people do....or maybe too many people are and Lion's Blood is getting inundated. (I never checked back emails on the scribal list to see that THIS Lion's Blood didn't want to see scroll text. LOL So I could have gotten four days of that time back for myself if I'd just remembered that email going out awhile back, but I'm too forgetful, I always go back to the manual.)

Anyway, requests for info from other sources besides the individual himself were woefully lacking in information and uninformative. I was glad the people weren't talking about me. I got essentially "He's a good fighter, has won this award and wears armor this color." Wow....somebody told me he was really tall and he was a really sweet guy. Not a great deal to go on when you are trying to personalize something to make a memory for someone to last a lifetime. Luckily his Wrangler knew more, and since it wasn't a surprise, his Wrangler put him in contact with me and I could get some info out of him to add to the mix.

In a few days I'll post some pix of the scroll and how it went. Design inspirations, and all that so people can follow the thought process and see what a pain it is and how many mistakes are made when you can't take breaks when you are tired. Or when your one working eye is over strained and you are losing your depth perception. (I really am earning the OneEyed title lately!)

But it will have to wait until it's done....and after it's been awarded....at Sport of Kings...which I won't get to see. Hopefully, someone will get a picture.
from a puzzled and tired goddess

The hands are it.

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...
Really. Luckily the black plague only visited for a few weeks and left awhile back.

If you are squeamish about stuff, you might want to stop reading now. This is a gross pictures alert. But truly, it was like a train wreck that got worse every day. I couldn't hold anything, and I couldn't stop poking at it or taking pictures.

The first few days the itching and "hives" or whatever you want to call the reaction weren't too bad....then it got worse. I've had this before when I was taking narcotics long-term, which I am now. It's why I take benadryl with the narcotics, to cut down on the hystamine reactions. I know when there is too much morphine built up in my system because the small blisters will start to form under my skin in my hands and fingers and itch like crazy.

I end up with larger almost pimple like blisters elsewhere, but my hands are awful. The blisters will get so big, from little pin heads to where they grow together and make my fingers like overcooked and water logged sausages.

I've always just popped the edge of the big blisters and wrapped the fingers up and tried to keep them from getting to where I can't use them. WRONG thing to do as I was told by MULTIPLE medical practitioners.

Well, this reaction was MUCH worse than usual. It started out like normal. And progressed like normal.  I stopped my morphine, thinking it was the culprit. It kept getting worse. I stopped the other new medication I had just increased the dose on and checked with the pharmacy...it would take at least a week for it to clear my system. I took the new flea collars off the cats and dog as well. Quadrupled my benadryl and even tried it topically. It just kept getting worse.

That is NOT a shadow, it's a blood blister and the color of the skin.

Eventually, about the time that the entire finger sized blood blisters made it look like I had the black plague, that was not a joke, and I had a red line climbing up the OUTSIDE of my arm which was strange. It looked like a blood poisoning line, crawled up my arm like a blood poisoning line, but I've had blood poisoning in the past and it was on the inside of the arm...hmmm. I marked the spots and watched it progress up my arm and took some Aleve for the 103 degree fever.  The fever didn't drop below 101 within the next 4 hours while the line went up my arm another 5 inches and I waited for my husband to come back from the meeting he was at in Portland.

I checked the emails I had been exchanging with my doctor's office and discovered that they wanted me to go into an ER or Urgent Care if I broke a fever...ooops...I was starting to think it might be a plan.

I don't think the ER doctor knew whether to be disgusted or intrigued. He did tell me that in a possible drug reaction like mine that I COULD react like that all OVER my body and have swollen, blistered skin that would squirt liquid every time it was touched and break and oh, gross....just about what my hands had been doing for days...all OVER....yuckies....

This was my neck

My mistake had been opening the skin. The blister here to the right on the thumb? It's infected. And so is the on under the ring finger. The blood blisters are caused by all the pressure the liquid filled skin puts on the underlying skin as it swells. I was "just like a burn victim," as the doctor said. Believe me, I felt like it!

It was bad enough that my neck, face and chin had gotten into the act...Even my eyes were involved.

The ER doctor wrote orders that I was to go to OHSU and get an URGENT dermatology appointment and have the skin biopsied to make sure there was nothing more dangerous happening there. He even called the orders to my internist, who got the orders to the Dermatology department.  This was on Wednesday night/morning around 4 am.  I called my internist the next day and was told the "urgent referral" had been put through. I then called dermatology, this is Thursday mind you, and was told that the earliest "urgent" appointment I could get was 2 weeks out.  I LMAO and told the receptionist no thank you, but by that time I would have either molted, died of the plague, or needed to go back to ER, or been healed enough that what ER would have wanted the dermatologist to see would be gone. Her response to my snippiness was her own snippiness...I can't give you urgent appointments I don't have. LOL

So then the next afternoon, Friday, after I have left an email for my doctor, explaining that I'll keep the shedding skin for them since the dermatogist's receptionist considers 2 weeks urgent enough and that I'm not going to bother to waste my time or money when by that time most of the symptoms will have gone under ground and be invisible or so bad I'll be back in ER long beforehand....well...Friday I get a call from Dermatology ....a different receptionist....saying my urgent referral has been called over and can I come in that afternoon? LOL this is at 3:30 when I live 45 minutes plus away from OHSU. Which is the reason I didn't go to their ER in the first place. I tried, they said if I could make it by 4:15PM they would see me. With traffic I couldn't do it, but I DID get to see them the next Monday at 8:15am...hmmm....guess there IS such a thing as an URGENT appointment after all, huh? And the Dermatologist agreed that I should have seen him the week before, but that the first he had heard of the problem was on Friday...hmmm strange....

This is after a week of treatment by the doctor.

Then the skin was sloughing and hurting, just like a burn victim, but at least I felt like I was healing.

All parties then agreed that the biopsy wasn't really necessary. That it probably was a drug reaction to an increase in effexor and that my long term narcotics could be re-started and I should continue to take the benadryl and the tagamet the ER doc had started me on. Weirdly enough, tagamet has something in it that is a H2 Histamine blocker and was stopping a great deal more of the itching than even the benadryl. The dermatologist also gave me some ointment.

The upshot is no antidepressants whatsoever for the last month and a half and it has been a nightmare because I tried my old ones in the middle of this and they seemed to increase the itching.

Though as of this week, the first of August, I put the flea collar back on Mystique and MY HANDS EXPLODED within 3 days and the pinky on my right hand even went to blood blisters....so...off with the flea collar and back to the dermatologist's ointment, and maybe I can go back to the antidepressants that were working? We'll see...

from a chronically depressed goddess who is ALWAYS puzzled

passing of a friend and companion...

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...I hate being this cliche. EVERYONE blogs about losing their animals. EVERYONE blogs about losing family. I think I did that too...maybe. That one hit much harder, for longer, and still hits on a daily basis so maybe I didn't...I don't really remember right now.  But EVERYONE blogs about their dead pets...I'm going to too...

She was named Shadow. My husband called her Shallow kitty and taught her how to speak on command.

It was very weird. She's been trying to convince him for the last 16, almost 17 years, that he REALLY likes cats better than dogs...REALLY.  No go.  I called her kitty rat, and bitch-trichs, and bitch-kitty, and the black bitch. (You had to be there. LOL) SHE WAS the top of the ALPHA pile in this house and knew it. We  were all her slaves.

When she started going downhill a few years ago the kids convinced me to take in a stray feral cat a friend of theirs had saved. He has a personality and is the most intelligent cat I've ever met. And he ended up outweighing Shadow cat by about double, but he always kowtowed to her Attitude. They somehow thought he was a female originally and called him Lilly. He's been renamed Leon... Or Lee-Lee.

Then 6 months later a little runt of the litter was brought to us by neighbors to try to save. My mom in law saved her. We named her Mystique and she adopted my son.

She doesn't weigh more than a minute and always sneaked around under queen Shadow's radar.

 The dog and the fixed male cat were a whoooole 'nother story. They were ALWAYS on her growl screen.

I think we would have had our Shadow kitty for a few more years, but I let a teenager put the flea treatment on the animals this last time.

We order the same brand for all of them from PetMeds. One size for the little kitty. One size for the bigger cats. And a different one for the dog. I kept the flea treatment for the cats in the bathroom, and the one for the dog in the livingroom. But the teenager hadn't ever gotten out the treatment for the animals before, and I didn't double check the tubes.  You can guess what happened. The little cat got the correct dosage. The bigger cats got the dog flea treatment.  It took me over a week to figure it out. I didn't clue in until I went to get the dosage for the dog and realized that there was only one tube left...there should have been 3.

I'm told that was the beginning of the end for our older cat. The younger male has seemed to shake off any ill effects, but Shadow kitty always was asthmatic and wheezed. That got worse. She got infections. Her feet broke out in open sores and we tried to treat them.

4 months later as things just won't heal for her she was worse and then 8 months later and she had open sores on her back that we were told were cancerous and tumors growing on her sides and the back of her neck. She pulled out her own claws and took out her own eye.

I've never hated the fact that I was poor more in my life as I held my loving friend and watched her suffer this last month. I treated her feet and back and looked into euthanasia and realized that my budget just doesn't stretch that far right now.

I can't even afford a doctor visit for my kid, let alone for my cat. What a way to make you feel like you are one of the absolutely disenfranchised.

I finally decided to bathe her today. She didn't much like baths, but she'd had many of them throughout her life with us. I was hoping being clean would make her feel better; instead I have the guilt of knowing I brought about her final convulsions and seizures that led to her death. At least I was there and holding her...but I wish I'd been comforting her...not making her do something she disliked as her last memory.

My daughter tells me I should take heart, that now she's with our old dog that she used to get into trouble with and she's pushing chocolate donuts off the table so that he can scarf them down when no humans are watchin'.  I can only hope they stay that happy.

from a goddess who misses her kitty...even though she didn't much like anyone...

The green and yellow that's NOT going to Estrella, or Pennsic....

Some goddesses are puzzled by this...like me...

 Colors of glass in greens primarily because it was done as a

Hauksgar$r  prize piece. Bottom bead on this part of the

strand was work with specifially  applied stringer. 3rd

 from bottom was a failed englobing attempt and there are

4 different designs using dots.

 Lately I've been watching the You Tube and learning how other people do things and buying a great deal of Mapp-Pro bottles and burning the flame to wind that glass around thos steel mandrels to see what I can come up with.

 More dots! bead on top was tri-corner folded. The

next down was an attempt at a bicone bead. Then my

 first attempt at a mosaic bead. A folded and patterned

bead with stringer work. A bead with stringer work. A

dragon stamped focal bead. A folded bead, a folded and

patterned bead.

  I've made a few necklaces in the past that I've been okay, happy with and am now working on specific techniques.

This necklace combines quite a few of those techniques into a pleasing whole and adds a few new twists.  It was a donation to our Canton's fundraising coffers.



This side of the necklace contains the other mosaic I learned to do
while making this  necklace. The bicone, two cylinder beads
with multiple stringer and bicolored glass  overlaying or side to side.
Eye-beads.



Eye beads. A cylindrical bead for practice

 using side by side  laying techniques, raking

techniques to simulate techniques of actual

rocks and gems. a standard eyebead, a square

 eyebead,  a standard bead, 2 raked beads.

 polka dotted bead



My daughter did some "I wonder" type checking after I started making these donations and discovered that each glass, lampwoven bead in a necklace like this ran between $0.50-$5.00 in supplies alone depending on the color used and the time it takes to make (how much gas you are burning and how many steps there are in the process of what you are creating...and that doesn't include electric kiln cooldown time or any of that if it's available, or REALLY expensive glass. ;D She just wanted to ball park what we were handing away just in materials, minus our time.  There are about 35 glass beads in this necklace... so lets say about 12 are easy,  $ 0.50; about 8 are so-so $1.00;  about 6, are medium $ 2.50; 4 above average. $4.00, 4 really unusual $5.00, and one focus bead, $6-$10    igore the beading wire, findings, crimps, covers, jump rings,  $1.50,

metal spacer beads 6- 2 @ $.90 4@$.50

THIS particular necklace, cost wise, in materials alone, ran about $79-$90.  Supplies alone. Then you add my time and labor. :} I don't think the world is ready for this. It works out to roughly 8 1/4 hours.  So you've got another $43-85 added to that for actual labor costs.

In the bag raffle in netted about $27 worth of tickets. Excellent deal wasn't it? LOL The winning bidder put about $6 or $8 into that item I believe. Woot! I hope she likes it. We now have been told, only silent auctions from here on in. So....

I guess I'm always just amazed when I sit down and really put a 'price' or 'cost' on our SCA hobbies. LOL Now I know why I can't afford to buy other people's stuff, I'm too busy buying materials to make mine!
as always a goddess truly amazed by reality...