So I have been doing exactly two things the past year. The first is serving as Deputy Warden of the AEthelmearc Foresters Guild and the other is Illumination. I have been sharing my scrolls and some updates and some tips (including samples of different types of paints to test how they compare) on my Facebook page for A Wandering Elf. Unfortunately, that outlet is really shoddy for writing tips and tutorials so here I am again.
I want to talk more about supplies, and why I make the choices that I do for the work I want to produce. I also have to note that while there are no right or wrong choices amongst the more popular options, many Kingdom's actually have standards that they prefer scribes follow so it is always good to hook up with your local scribes to see what the regional preferences are for materials.
Pergamenata is a really divisive thin in the SCA for whatever reason, but I can honestly say, I adore this surface for painting. For those unfamiliar with this, it is also called "vegan vellum" or "vegan parchment". It has a bit of the look and feel of actual animal skin while being very budget friendly and quite uniform. Most folks in the SCA prefer the heaviest weight of this paper. It is made in Italy and is sold here by a number of vendors including John Neal Bookseller (a popular source for scribal supplies).
Other popular surfaces for scribal work tend to be Bristol board, illustration board, watercolor paper (typically hot press, but I have seen scrolls on heavily textured cold press before as well). Of course, there is also real parchment that often gets employed for higher level awards as well.
Personally? I prefer Pergamenata for most of my work. (I have dabbled some with real parchment and have a planned project that will eventually utilize it but largely, this is far out of my budget.) For me, Perg is the next best thing. I like the surface, which is smooth but not too smooth. My paint and linework can glide across the page easily (sharp lines are difficult on cold press watercolor paper, for example).
I used illustration board and bristol board in college, and honestly, I did not really love the surfaces then. I adore high quality hot press watercolor paper (such as Arches) but only for more modern watercolor techniques. I do not love it so much for scrolls.
One perk of Perg is that it is somewhat transparent. Even without a light table I can trace bold lines right through the heavyweight. This allows me to lay out my scrolls on cheap paper, or even digitally, and print them out to trace. With a light board tracing your scroll base becomes a breeze. I cannot see through Arches or the various types of board at all which means work has to be transferred another way.
Perg can also take a lot of erasing if you are working with 2H pencils and have a good white eraser. The surface won't start to deteriorate as rapidly as on some other papers.
And that gets me to the thing that makes me love this medium the most (aside from the overall look). I use high quality gouache and watercolors for scrolls and it is easy to "erase" many mistakes.
I plan out what colors I want where, but occasionally I blop the wrong color in the wrong spot. With perg, I can use a stiff-ish brush, a little water, and steady hands and can remove most of the color so that I can lay something else down. (If the paint is non-staining, I can remove dang near all of it.) I can remove an area of whitework laid over alizarin crimson, cobalt blue or ultramarine over, and over, and over, and over if I do not like how it looks. That is key for me. If you keep wetting other paper types, they eventually start to break down. (I can usually remove a bit on heavy arches, but not over and over and over.)
Below I am going to share a very recent example of removing white work.
This is my WTF was I thinking whitework. Specifically, I am talking about the peak of the arch where there is a mess of white lines and whatnot over red. It started off with a typical zigzag (which is period) but it wasnt "enough" and I kept laying into it until I hated it.
I want to talk more about supplies, and why I make the choices that I do for the work I want to produce. I also have to note that while there are no right or wrong choices amongst the more popular options, many Kingdom's actually have standards that they prefer scribes follow so it is always good to hook up with your local scribes to see what the regional preferences are for materials.
Pergamenata is a really divisive thin in the SCA for whatever reason, but I can honestly say, I adore this surface for painting. For those unfamiliar with this, it is also called "vegan vellum" or "vegan parchment". It has a bit of the look and feel of actual animal skin while being very budget friendly and quite uniform. Most folks in the SCA prefer the heaviest weight of this paper. It is made in Italy and is sold here by a number of vendors including John Neal Bookseller (a popular source for scribal supplies).
Other popular surfaces for scribal work tend to be Bristol board, illustration board, watercolor paper (typically hot press, but I have seen scrolls on heavily textured cold press before as well). Of course, there is also real parchment that often gets employed for higher level awards as well.
Personally? I prefer Pergamenata for most of my work. (I have dabbled some with real parchment and have a planned project that will eventually utilize it but largely, this is far out of my budget.) For me, Perg is the next best thing. I like the surface, which is smooth but not too smooth. My paint and linework can glide across the page easily (sharp lines are difficult on cold press watercolor paper, for example).
I used illustration board and bristol board in college, and honestly, I did not really love the surfaces then. I adore high quality hot press watercolor paper (such as Arches) but only for more modern watercolor techniques. I do not love it so much for scrolls.
One perk of Perg is that it is somewhat transparent. Even without a light table I can trace bold lines right through the heavyweight. This allows me to lay out my scrolls on cheap paper, or even digitally, and print them out to trace. With a light board tracing your scroll base becomes a breeze. I cannot see through Arches or the various types of board at all which means work has to be transferred another way.
Perg can also take a lot of erasing if you are working with 2H pencils and have a good white eraser. The surface won't start to deteriorate as rapidly as on some other papers.
And that gets me to the thing that makes me love this medium the most (aside from the overall look). I use high quality gouache and watercolors for scrolls and it is easy to "erase" many mistakes.
I plan out what colors I want where, but occasionally I blop the wrong color in the wrong spot. With perg, I can use a stiff-ish brush, a little water, and steady hands and can remove most of the color so that I can lay something else down. (If the paint is non-staining, I can remove dang near all of it.) I can remove an area of whitework laid over alizarin crimson, cobalt blue or ultramarine over, and over, and over, and over if I do not like how it looks. That is key for me. If you keep wetting other paper types, they eventually start to break down. (I can usually remove a bit on heavy arches, but not over and over and over.)
Below I am going to share a very recent example of removing white work.
This is my WTF was I thinking whitework. Specifically, I am talking about the peak of the arch where there is a mess of white lines and whatnot over red. It started off with a typical zigzag (which is period) but it wasnt "enough" and I kept laying into it until I hated it.
With a cheap craft-store bulk pack brush that is slightly stiff, and a little water I can basically lift all of that mess right off the perg. The trick is not using too much water and staying absolutely within the lines and only remove what you want to remove. I use a very slight sweeping motion, frequently wiping the paint off on a paper towel and cleaning the brush and it then looks like the image below. Slightly streaky, but easy to clean up more if I choose, or to paint over it to even it out.
After it completely dries (this is critical) I can add a thin layer of fresh paint using a very small brush and very short strokes (this, fyi, is always how I fill areas anyways). Also, it is worth noting here that I always paint a bit thinner than the bog-standard "melted milkshake". Many manuscripts in period were painted in layers, or had paint that was not evenly applied. One of the things some folks dont like about perg is "buckling" but that can very easily worked around.
I always tape my perg to a solid surface, usually an acrylic board. I keep several on hand in the sizes I most commonly use. This helps control a bit of the buckling, but you also need to not over saturate at once (work instead in layers), and let it completely dry between layers. (Also, use the heavier weight perg.). Having your perg on a board also helps prevent accidentally folding an edge and it allows you to turn the whole thing to any angle you need to lay in a particular delicate motif.
I always tape my perg to a solid surface, usually an acrylic board. I keep several on hand in the sizes I most commonly use. This helps control a bit of the buckling, but you also need to not over saturate at once (work instead in layers), and let it completely dry between layers. (Also, use the heavier weight perg.). Having your perg on a board also helps prevent accidentally folding an edge and it allows you to turn the whole thing to any angle you need to lay in a particular delicate motif.
I mentioned the crappy craft brush, this is a #4 flat brush from some multi pack that I (or maybe even my dad) purchased a billion years ago. The other brush is THE most used brush in my inventory. It is the Royal & Langnickle 30/0 Mini Majestic Monogram brush. Remember me saying I paint with thin paint in loose strokes? This is what I often use for that work, as well as laying in leaves and flowers. I have long, fine brushes for my vines, outlines and whitework.
You can see what the repainted area looks like below.
You can see what the repainted area looks like below.
And finally, the new white work that I am much happier about! The most important thing to note here is that I "erased" and repainted this THREE times because I just kept messing up. The perg was still holding up beautifully.
Now, to be totally fair, I do need to note that the one major drawback that some folks have with perg is that it sometimes does not want to "accept" paint. I went through about 15 sheets before I hit a problem space on one sheet. When this happens, the paint wants to bead up (imagine using watercolor on plastic, and that is pretty much what happens). This can be "fixed" by going over it with a white eraser, or better yet, treating it like parchment. Ideally though, you would prep it before even starting. Personally, I bought a parchment prep kit from John Neal Bookseller and just use the pounce that comes in that to very quickly and easily prime my surface before starting my drawing/tracing/painting.
I would love to hear the experiences others have with perg or their favorite surfaces!
I will hopefully be able to share the whole piece after this is award later. :-)
I would love to hear the experiences others have with perg or their favorite surfaces!
I will hopefully be able to share the whole piece after this is award later. :-)
Because of course there is a part 2....
And just a few hours after posting this, I felt the need to give Arches hot press another go for scribal style. And yeah, it changes my mind about nothing. Now, I do understand this is perfectly suited to the way some folks paint and is quite possibly the best option for them, but I will save mine for further exploration of water color styles. ;-)
Problem 1: It is my preference to paint with thin paint. It glides off the brush into exceptionally fine lines and tight spaces with ease. However, on fine textured and this highly absorbent paper, that technique does not work at all. Layering never gets as solid as I can get easily on perg and it overworks more quickly. This is where that melted milkshake consistency works well. The blue here is a single layer painted on as I normally do. Typically, I can only do one layer of ultramarine because it covers well. (Alizarin Crimson takes two when used thin on perg.)
BElow you can see a second later of Ultramarine. The pyrol red is applied at a thicker consistency. Another issue here is that edging lines are never anywhere as clean as they are when I use thin paint on perg.
White work is added. Also played with some black linework that did not want to be as refined as I typically can paint.
In the image below I removed the whitework in the same fashion as I do on perg, recolored, then repainted the white details.
The blue surface has changed texture, but not badly. The red had so much paint on it, I could remove the surface without going clear down to the paper so it held up better. If you are going to use this surface, thicker paint is going to be the way to go.
The blue surface has changed texture, but not badly. The red had so much paint on it, I could remove the surface without going clear down to the paper so it held up better. If you are going to use this surface, thicker paint is going to be the way to go.
I removed the decoration yet again. You can see how disturbed the surface of the blue is, while the red (where it is applied thick) still does better over all. For certain types of painting, I can understand why folks would like this. (Cheaper paper though, will not fare nearly as well.)
I also realized that that thicker coat of paint is likely why perg is buckling on folks when I have no issue at all with it. The edges of the page would curl on me a bit if it was not taped down, but I dont have the extreme warping some folks complain about. Thinner coats, with drying between, alleviates most those issues when working on perg.
Thinner coats also allow me to get very, very fine detail (and I am working on getting better at this still), I cannot do that with thicker paint, no matter how thin my brush. I prefer the paint to flow off rather than me pushing it off the brush as I work.
I also realized that that thicker coat of paint is likely why perg is buckling on folks when I have no issue at all with it. The edges of the page would curl on me a bit if it was not taped down, but I dont have the extreme warping some folks complain about. Thinner coats, with drying between, alleviates most those issues when working on perg.
Thinner coats also allow me to get very, very fine detail (and I am working on getting better at this still), I cannot do that with thicker paint, no matter how thin my brush. I prefer the paint to flow off rather than me pushing it off the brush as I work.
Ultimately, I am also inspired by historic examples. I like digging in to learn more about how the manuscripts were made, and items like the unfinished pages of the Tickhill Psalter just thrill me in how the initial layers are transparent and often uneven!
When it comes down to it, there are many materials we can employ as Illuminators in the SCA. Some delight in being able to lay out a scroll in a single coat on a surface they consider to be the least fussy. Some want to get as many unique scrolls into deserving hands as possible. Some folks are at the other end of the spectrum and only use handmade glair as paint and only work on parchment. My own personal goal is to sample things and learn my own best way to share the very tiny, fine details that I love to paint. For me, high quality paints and perg allow me to get better at this aspect with each new scroll. None of these options are wrong and I am glad we are in a place that can embrace a variety of ways to share our art.
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