From: owner-scribes@castle.org (scribes digest) To: scribes-digest@castle.org Subject: scribes digest V1 #33 Reply-To: Sender: owner-scribes@castle.org Errors-To: owner-scribes@castle.org Precedence: bulk scribes digest Tuesday, February 3 1998 Volume 01 : Number 033 In this issue: [scribes]: Re: when using bristol board Re: [scribes]: Re: when using bristol board Re: [scribes]: Burnisher solution [scribes]: Paper&parchment Re: [scribes]: when using bristol board... [scribes]: Anyone know anything about this book? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:54:36 -0500 From: ab873@jepms4.jep.cummins.com Subject: [scribes]: Re: when using bristol board SuZaimware wrote: >when using bristol board do you "paint" in a parchmenty-colored >background? I don't. While the bristol board (or arches hot press paper for that matter) isn't the same color as vellum, I just let it be. I would worry about painting in a background. All that extra water and paint might buckle the paper something fierce. Painting over the calligraphy would be a mess if you weren't using waterproof ink, and calligraphing over the color could lead to problems too. My philosophy is that I am probably making 1000 mistakes that take away from the medieval look of my scroll, so I can live with the color of the paper. By the time I get good enough to worry about it, hopefully I will have the funds to work on vellum. (I don't know if you have had a chance to look at many scrolls done on real vellum, but it is more than just the color that is different. I can't describe it well, but scrolls on vellum are just magical!) Good luck! Dorinda Courtenay (Dorinda Courtine-White) Shire of Heronter, AEthelmearc (Jamestown, New York) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:28:29 EST From: FITCHYBEAR@aol.com Subject: Re: [scribes]: Re: when using bristol board In a message dated 98-02-03 11:06:57 EST, ab873@jepms4.jep.cummins.com writes: << I don't know if you have had a chance to look at many scrolls done on real vellum, but it is more than just the color that is different. I can't describe it well, but scrolls on vellum are just magical!) Good luck! Dorinda Courtenay (Dorinda Courtine-White) >> I agree. Because of the non uniformity of the skin, the pigments absorb at different rates and give more depth and helps with modelling-JimBear ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:57:22 -0500 From: randyaf@provide.net (Randy & Melody Asplund-Faith) Subject: Re: [scribes]: Burnisher solution > You Wrote: > Master Ranthulfr Asparlundr, KSCA > >PS. Next week I dare somebody to ask about wax tablets! > >O.K. I'll bite, I have seen others use these at events I have a couple of >friends that would love them, the frames are no problem, how do I make >the wax to apply in them, a recipe would be great. Thanks. > >Gevehard von Baden > Waxed tablets are very ancient in use. They go back to the bronze age at least. In ancient times I can document them as having bee's wax melted with orpiment. If i remember right, I can also document the proportion, which I THINK was 1pt Orpiment to 3 pts wax, but that is information I have to dig out. I just went searching for it, but came up short so it will have to wait. I am looking for a secondary source in National Geographic from several years ago called BRONZE AGE WRECK which details a tablet found in the bottom of an amphora and discusses another found in a well in Syria 3,000 some years old. Anyway, just going off the top of my head, the wax can be colored with lots of different things. We see some different colors in paintings of them, but I have only documented orpiment and more importantly, lampblack. Orpiment is dangerous to handle and difficult to get, so let's go with the common medieval color of black. Its just soot. But it's clean, pure, and fine. You only need enough to make the wax take a non-translucent color. I have to find my proportions because it has been a couple of years since I've made them and it is undoubtedly in the same place I put the NAT. GEO., It is somewhere around about a half sake cup of wax and a 3/4 to 1 teaspoon of lampblack. It doesn't really matter if you are not exact. The color doesn't have enough body to do anything but make the wax opaque black. HOWEVER: the Bronze Age article did say something about orpiment being added to acheive a certain consistancy. My experiments lead me to believe that claim might be schoolar B S since I found that orpiment didn't really make it better or worse to write when used in different amounts. Maybe I didn't grind mine far enough. The other thing was that it didn't change the color that much from that of the wax. I wonder if it might have been in there to make the play of light on the surface easier to read the lines? Or could orpiment have been cheaper as a material than the bee's wax? I just don't know. What I do know is that you would have to put a whole lot of lampblack in to get the same consistancy as orpiment, so my bet is that it was there to make the light reflecting off the written lines easier to read. The tablets I make get pre-waxed with HOT beeswax. This is to fill the pores so the blackened wax doesn't mess it later, and it helps keep the wood from warping. (Start witha fine grained harder wood). I mix the wax and soot and pre-warm the tablet some. This helps the brushed on wax flow better. I use about a 3/4 wide flat nylon hair brush to dip into very hot blackwax. Stir, and apply like paint. It is ok to overlap a stroke, but don't layer it on thick. All of the artifacts I've seen had VERY thin applications. You will smooth the surface after it is painted in by mushing it down with the flat of the stylus. This is a dragging and pulling motion where you are pressing down hard. The stylus is at a very shallow angle. Also, hot wax will bubble some when it is applied. That isn't a problem because it will get smoothed. Paint in the wax at a temperature which allows it to flow into the tablet, but doesn't leave thin washes anywhere. This method will allow you to apply wax to two-sided tablets. After you apply the wax, smooth it. Don't scrape the wax out or move it around a lot by scraping if you can help it. The wax can be scraped out some day to replace it, but that is not how you erase or smooth it. You don't want to accidentally make hills and valleys of wax. The erasing is the same downward mushing-in action I just described. By keeping your aplication thin and erasing straight down, your wax stays flat. This is really important since the recessed area of the wax is only suposedto be about 1/32 of an inch deep (+/- a smidgen). The stylus sometimes penetrated the wax that far, but usually the lines of writing are so delicately made that they do not. No deep gauging with the stylus! Every single artifact tablet I have read about or handled, be it bronze age, Roman, or medieval, was small enough to fit in the hand. There was a set excavted in York which was well under 2 inches and made of several pages waxed on both sides and very thin. That doesn't mean there were not larger tablets. There are Roman period funarary paintings depicting tablets which seem about 10 or more inches tall and narrow. From Pmpeii is a depiction of a bifold which is about as long as the guy's hand. In the Minnesanger books there are tablets depicted which seem about 10 to 12 inches, give or take a few inches (for illuminator inaccuracy) and I've seen other medieval iluminations with larger tablets. I'll try to find the research materials in my mess. There is a great source from a Scientific American artical on medieval Novgarod with 15th c. tablets. Until then, I hope these tips will get you through making your tablet. If you want to see some of my tablets go to my web page and hit the Scribe link near the bottom. Good luck! Ranthulfr Asparlundr, OL KSCA Randy Asplund-Faith 2101 S. Circle Dr. Ann Arbor, MI. 48103 http://www.provide.net/~randyaf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 17:57:28 -0500 From: randyaf@provide.net (Randy & Melody Asplund-Faith) Subject: [scribes]: Paper&parchment Don't feel guilty about using white paper. The later period parchment makers went through a lot tryin to get their parchment as uniform white and smooth as possible. They would have killed for the secret to Bristol paper! The difference is that parchment has a skin grain. The blood vessels in the skin show up to varying degrees. This is sought out by book binders who favor the grain look, but avoided as much as possible by medieval illuminators. The whiter th page for illuminators, the better. Unfortunately,it didn't always work out that way. The early britishpages are often darker yellow and full of ugly marks compared to the fine french vellums of the French 15th c. Court. Some of it is the technology of raising and herding animals with care and being very good in the slaughter, and some of it has to do with starting with a herd of sheep not intended for book production. Hey Master Baldrck, it's your turn! Ranthulfr Randy Asplund-Faith 2101 S. Circle Dr. Ann Arbor, MI. 48103 http://www.provide.net/~randyaf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 18:16:25 -0500 From: "Helen Schultz" Subject: Re: [scribes]: when using bristol board... On Tuesday, February 03, 1998 Maryz the Somewhat Scattered said: > when using bristol board for a scroll, do you "paint" in a parchmenty-colored > (say ivory) background? Or just leave the natural color (soft white) of the > bristol board? if you do paint, what color(s) do you use? I assume they > would be quite dilute, more of a wash than anything... ~~~~~ Maryz, I don't think you have to color the paper. Actually, although a light cream color, real vellum/parchment was much lighter then some of the facsimile colors we see now. Turning the pages makes them a bit darker and so does time. Since paper (read that as Bristol Board) is considerably more accessible to most (both financially and physically), we usually leave it as it is. The only exception to this would be if you were doing an approximation of a dyed vellum page, or even a page with a color (usually black or purple) painted over a very large area. That is a different story all together and a bit early for your attempts. When you get more experience in illuminating, and have looked at more examples, you will understand what I mean. ~~~~~ About the hand to use with acanthus leaves. I've seen everything from the 16th century version of Carolingian to what I call the French Bastarde hand (but recently saw it called the Cursive Gothic Script of 16th century England/France. I think you could even do an Italic and have it not look out of place. Sounds like you have made a good start...congratulations!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Meisterin Katarina Helene von Schoenborn, OL Shire of Narrental (Peru, Indiana) Middle Kingdom ~~ Vert, a unicorn head couped close Argent, crinned and armed Or, and in sinister, a gore Or ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 18:58:45 -0500 From: "L.A. Christie" Subject: [scribes]: Anyone know anything about this book? Greetings, all. In my search for any kind of Eastern European (esp. Polish :) manuscript examples, I came across the book listed below (from an on-line bookseller - not much of a description with it, just the title & ISBN info). Is anyone familiar with this book? Seen it? Have it? What can you tell me about it? Any information would be appreciated. I've already ordered it, but only because their special order policy is, if I don't like it when I see it, I'm not obligated to buy it...would still like the advance plug, though. It'll be 4-6 weeks till it gets here... Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters : A Census of Manuscripts Found in Eastern Europe and the Former U.S.S.R (Davis Medieval T) Vol 8 Emil J. Polak / Hardcover / Published 1992 Our Price: $120.50 (Special Order) Thanks, EWA * * * * * * Visit The Polish Peasant Home Page at http://www.datasys.net/polish Lady Ewa Grzybowska, Shire of Dragonfly Marsh "Whoever says, 'God bless the soul of the scribe', God will bless his soul." * * * * * * ------------------------------ End of scribes digest V1 #33 ****************************