I owe my exploration and practice of calligraphy to my second ever scroll.

After the first backlog day with Malagentia I had so much fun creating a squashed bug illumination that I wanted to do it again! I clicked through the scanned images on line and found one that I was happy with and started to paint.

The Stonemarche scribal backlog day was coming up and rather than trying to complete one backlog in that time frame I felt it would be more helpful to have one ready to turn in (or close to it). Upon arriving at the backlog day, I was quickly put to work. But not in the way I thought. As I attempted to turn in the scroll in I was asked if I would mind doing the calligraphy before handing it off. Now, up to this point I had never done calligraphy with a nice calligraphy pen. I had only ever played around with practice pens with huge nibs; and boy-howdy was I nervous.

Paeoniaceae in gouache

dites Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne by Bourdichon (1457-1521), published 1505-1510, Latin.

I agreed, so long as if I didn’t finish I could take it home (this was also my way of covering my back in case I royally messed up the illumination, because I knew that I could easily make another one). Mistress Camille desJardins sat with me and walked me through the steps on how to find the text that best matches that source material, how to prep the paper (lines and appropriate nib size) and I got to work. I borrowed some ink an nibs from Lady Cwenthryn, some paper and books from Mistress Camille and I set out on the adventure that would soon be my calligraphy practice.

To make this a long story short, I went through three practice runs; first practicing the alphabet, then writing out most of the words while adjusting the nib size so that the text fit on the paper, then doing a to-scale mock of the text to adjust spacing, and practice spelling. It took me about 6 hours to complete all of the practice. I was nervous and my hand felt exhausted. However, I was determined after all of this practice to finally put it on the scroll that I had created a few days before.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Two hours later it was done. My neck and back ached, my hand was now cramping and my eyes were blurring. I was stressed and scarred.

It turned out without any spelling mistakes, had appropriate spacing, and overall there was little slanting of worlds (I was not working on a tilted desk, but flat school tables.

I was reminded throughout the process to take frequent breaks, stretch and walk away if I needed to. I had fabulous people stopping over to encourage me to not give up even if I was frustrated with how I was creating a particular letter (Ástrídr Sægeirsdottir). Also having a fresh new pair of eyes on your work helps you uncover a new method of doing something or a new supply you can use for future projects.

I am so thankful for thankful for this day because it gave me to courage to do calligraphy outside of the comfort of home.