A Renaissance-Style Portrait.


I was asked to produce this scroll with very little notice, so needed to keep it very simple, without any complex borders or decoration.  I decided to go for the something suggesting a Renaissance portrait, and managed to get hold of people who could supply me with suitable photos of the subject.  The final drawing is a composite, based on photos of Morales, his Renaissance doublet and jerkin, and a detail photo of the blackwork collar in construction.  The hat is entirely fictitious, but a bare head would have looked wrong!


I was not present when the scroll was presented, but was fortunate that Libby Cripps photographed the moment, and posted it on Facebook.



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scrolls in 2024

Image
  Because of changes in my personal life, involving a much higher workload in my job, 2024 has not been an especially productive year in terms of SCA scrolls.  In fact, I have only produced three award scrolls, though I have tried to ensure quality compensates for a lack of quantity. Pelican Scroll for Gele Pechplumen. Shortly before I was invited to do this scroll, the recipient had posted the image shown to the left, from a famous calligraphy exemplar book called "Mira Calligraphiae".  The creature is believed to be a sloth, though it looks nothing like one!  Knowing she liked the image, I decided to base my scroll for her on it.  Clearly, the sloth would not do... the award was for the Order of the Pelican, so I attempted to paint the order's symbol, the pelican feeding its chicks from its own blood, in a similar style. The original would have been painted on dyed black parchment.  I was unable to find or create a suitable equivalent, and so the painting...
Read more

A long-awaited Laurel Scroll

Image
 This scroll was commissioned at the beginning of 2020.  You can guess the rest.  By the time I had completed it, it was apparent it wasn't going to be presented any time soon, so I finished it without adding the date, which I was finally able to add a month ago, and the scroll was presented yesterday.  So far my record for the longest delay between my doing a scroll and it being presented, but I have another one still awaiting presentation which will beat that record!
Read more

My Feast Box

Image
 Feasting at the SCA is an important part of the experience, and we try to do it in a reasonably authentic way, using cutlery, crockery and other table-ware appropriate to the period.  Thus the "Feast Box" is an important part of anybody's kit, a means of conveying all the necessaries for participating in a feast.  Such boxes need to be identifiable as there are many participants at a feast, so Mary encouraged me to paint my coat of arms on mine (such personal heraldry as an important part of SCA culture).  I did, and went a bit overboard.  As I entered the box in an "Arts and Sciences" competition, I included the following documentation. Painted Feast Box     Richard of Salesberie   15 th Century “Cassoni”. This project was never intended to be a re-creation of an authentic-looking Period artefact, but rather to decorate a functional item that I use at SCA events in a manner that recalls elements of period design.   The box its...
Read more