Lia de Thornegge's Illuminations

2008-09-18: Currently all of my photos are unavailable. This makes most of my website very dull. I will try to get it fixed as soon as possible. In future, all photo links will point elsewhere. --Lia

On this page:

Introduction
Projects
Links to Online Manuscripts

Introduction

Mostly when I am working I am using my scribal desk, which can be dismantled, is portable and comes with its own carrier bag. The materials I use for my scribal projects are Windsor & Newton Designer Gouache paints, W & N Calligraphy Ink and 23 ct gold leaf for the flat gilding. Normal brushes in size 2 and down, and for calligraphy I use dip pens with metal nibs. Up until project 19 I have been using standard water colour paper to draw on, but I have since bought another kind of parchment paper which I think will work out much better. Future projects will be the judge of that, however.

Each image is a link to a page showing in-progress pictures or scans of that particular project or to a full-sized image of the finished project. Although I did not collect that much data on my first few attempts I have tried to do so on the later ones. If I know who recieved the scrolls that information will also be given.

At the bottom of the page, Manuscript links from my bookmarks

Projects

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |

Project #22, Golden Ribbon Award for Viscountess Filippa Birgersdotter
This Pricinpality level Service award was especially fun for me to do as it was going to my good friend Filippa. I did not, however, have very much time to do the scroll, so once again I had it written out and gilded, but not painted, when it was signed and shown to the recipient at the Winter Games. I then had arranged for the scroll to be returned to me for finishing, as I knew Filippa was going to come visit me not long after. I am particularily pleased with the historiated initial, showing my version of her presenting the Prince and Princess with the Nordmark Mead at Visby last year.

This award was presented to Filippa Birgersdotter at Winter Games A.S. 43.

Project #21, Queen's Order of Courtesy for Trinite Ducalon
Being that Lady Trinite Ducalon gave me this assignment as Signet Scribe for Drachenwald, some subterfuge was necessary. I was only given the award name to start with, and when Queen Fiona got the information that I was the scribe she contacted me privately with the name. Lady Trinite herself was given a false name to pass on to me, so she would not suspect that it was in reality for her. I chose again the same style as I used in projects #17 and #18, because I thought it would be pretty.

This award was presented to Trinite at 12th Night Coronation A.S. 43. The scroll was given unfinished, but subsequently finished and given back to Trinite at the following Spring Crown Tourney.

Project #20, Sigillum Regis for Sir Gerhardt von Wüstenburg
Having just met the good gentle at the Civil War event I was quite pleased to be given this assignment, and set to work with the intention of somehow incorporating a miniature of him in the scroll. I did some research on Sir Gerhardt and found his arms to incorporate in the lower border, and the proper spelling of his name (I hope), and found a style of scroll I thought would look good. It had room in an initial for a miniature and I managed to work the text such that the initial is the first letter of HRM Maximilian's name. Perfect setting for a king enthroned and a vassal receiving a gift.

This award was presented to Sir Gerhardt at Kingdom Coronation, June 9 AS 42 (2007). The scroll was there, but was not handed out due to a misunderstanding.

Project #19, An Award of Arms for Ygraine
The assignment was to create an Award of Arms scroll for Ygraine for Twelfth Night AS 41, which I managed with not a minute to spare. Unfortunately the good lady was not at that event so the delivery was somewhat delayed, and she was made a Lady on March 17th of the same year instead. The scroll is done in the Italian White Vine style, using gold leaf, gouache paints and W&N ink for the calligraphy. In the border at the bottom I incorporated a few personalized touches: a stand with a sheet music on it to represent her singing and a quill and ink bottle for her recent experiments with the scribal arts.

This Award of Arms was presented to Lady Ygraine of Warham at Saturday Night Fever, March 17, AS 41 (2007).

Projects #17 & #18, Kingdom A&S and Service Award Scrolls
Getting a couple of assignments (on October 22nd 2006) to finish before Kingdom University on November 11, I panicked just a little bit. I had already started on two blanks, one inspired by a mid 15th Century manuscript, and the other as an Italian renaissance white-vine scroll. I had help with the calligraphy on the first one, Lady Signe Scriffuerska wrote that out for me in a beautiful simplified batarde hand. Then I looked a little closer at the second person's period and decided that they did not really want an Italian white-vine scroll, so I started over with a new sketch inspired by the same manuscript as #17, this time I did the calligraphy myself and finished both scrolls in one week.

The Panache for Katherina Mornewegh and Lindquistring for Carolin von Adlersberg were given out to their respective recipients at Kingdom University 2006.

Project #16, Adding Calligraphy to a Scroll
During Visby tentcamp I was roped in to a day of scribal first aid. There was a scroll already beautifully painted by Lady Lunetta Scharnweber, incorporating the recipient in a most distinctive tunic and herself with a well-known hairdo and dress in the picture. All I needed to do was write out the award text and this Guardian of the White Portal award was finished. Not a big job, but at least I had a hand in it. The Award was announced in court at Double Wars this year, the scroll was finished at Visby and handed out in court at Civil War.

This scroll was presented to Lord Atli at the Nordmark Civil War event 2006.

Project #15, Order of Light Award scroll
Assigned a commission for an Order of Light scroll (Nordmark A&S award) I started this project in February 2006. To my shame I did not finish it in time for it to be handed to the recipient at the time the award was given out in court (at Vinterspelen, March 4 2006) by William and Filippa. The design is based on an Italian white-vine manuscript from the 3rd quarter of the 15th Century. Because I wanted the script to be as accurate as possible, I asked Myra Lea to do the calligraphy and I did the illumination on this scroll.

This Order of Light scroll was sent to Lady Elisiv Järnnäve in October, 2006.

Project #14, Golden Ribbon Award scroll
Taking on a backlog scroll once more I was tasked to create an award scroll for Lady Ælfwynne's Golden Ribbon award, being the AoA level service award for Nordmark. She was given the award in June 2005 (AS XL), by William and Filippa, and I was pleased to be able to finish it with personalized touches for the still reigning William and Filippa to present the scroll to the worthy lady at Nordmark University II in January 2006. The design is based on an English missal made around 1425-1430.

This Golden Ribbon scroll was presented to Lady Ælfwynne on January 28th, AS 40 (CE 2006).

Illumination, the thirteenth
Wanting a small piece to show people what the process is when making an illuminated page I cast about for suitable short bits of text and settled on the prologue to the Canterbury Tales. For the six stages of illuminating a normal page I chose the introductions to six of the characters, wrote out the text and then did my step-by-step illumination on the initials. This shows on a small scale, but rather effectively, how you progress from pencil sketch to finished piece.

Illumination, the twelfth
A case of emergency scrolling; this was an assignment I agreed to help with while at the event of Visby Medieval week. My resources therefore, were limited to what I could come up with out of my head using the water colour paints to hand. Viscountess Helwig Ulfsdotter did the calligraphy while I finished the illumination without any major slip-ups. I can at least say the recipient seemed pleased to get it.

This Award of Arms scroll was presented to Sten Stensson on August 12th, AS 40 (CE 2005).

Illumination, the eleventh
A scant couple of weeks before Double Wars I was given a scroll assignment to finish for presenting at court at the event. I therefore looked in my bookmarks for a simple but pretty style and found a Dutch Book of Hours at the Bodleian Library which suited the purposes. The original is from around 1420-30 and the individual leaves, while small, suit AoA purposes perfectly.

This Award of Arms scroll was presented to Jorunn Geirsdotter on May 5th (I think), AS 40 (CE 2005).

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the tenth
I found an image on my harddrive excellently suitable for a scroll, taken from the University of Salzburg (MS 23, fol 167r) it was pretty and I could get to work sketching it out. The border is floral, but not cluttered, and the scrolling, open acanthus leaves wreath along the length of the vine quite prettily. The original is from the third quarter of the 14th Century, which should fit into the recipient's persona.

This Award of Arms scroll was presented to Sophia Eriksdotter on January 29th, AS 39 (CE 2005).

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the ninth
I found an image on my harddrive excellently suitable for a scroll original so when given an assignment by my Princess I could get to work straight away. The original page is folio 14 verso from a manuscript called the Alphonso Psalter produced around the year 1316, kept at the British Library (Additonal MS 24686).

This Award of Arms scroll was presented to Yrsa Grimsdotter on March 3rd, AS 38 (CE 2004).

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the eighth
Before deciding which period original to start from this time I looked through loads and loads of manuscript pages. I've probably wasted more time on Library sites throughout the world than I should, but who can resist? The original (~660 kB) I found for this, my eight scroll, suitable for an AoA blank, was one from 1390. Taken from the British Library the Yates Thompson 24 record, folio 2 to be exact.

This Award of Arms scroll was presented to Tor of Viterheim on August 21st, AS 39 (CE 2004).

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the seventh
When I finished my fifth scroll with the white-vine I was not entirely happy with the vines so I thought I would give it another go. This time with the colour original I had found.

This Award of Arms scroll was given to Cristina Stolte on September 27th, AS 38 (CE 2003).

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the sixth
My second assignment to make a scroll is now premiered. The name of the receiver bears some affinity towards dragons so I looked for a scroll with some sort of dragon on it. I found one from a Psalter finished in the mid 13th century in Paris.

This Award of Arms was given to Erik Drake on May 10th, AS 38 (CE 2003)

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the fifth
Starting spring term 2003 also saw the beginning of my first actual scroll made to order including calligraphy and illumination. I went with an Italian style, after an original from the 1460's since the receiver of the AoA seemed to have an Italian name.

AoA for Dina de la Planta given on March 1, AS 37 (CE 2003)

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the fourth
My fourth scroll, which Gro Torstensdotter has done the calligraphy for. We were trying to make some blank scrolls to fill in and hand out as and when needed, so she did the calligraphy for an AoA and asked me to to the illumination. I immediately knew what I wanted to do, since I'd spent some time drooling over these gorgeous scrolls with the acanthus leaves.

This scroll was a blank which was eventually given out at Doublewars XVI (2003) to Gyrid Stenkilsdotter, now known as Emoni de la Fère.

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the third
As a third illumination and calligraphy work I figured I might as well actually do some calligraphy. Since I was talking to a person online who wanted a scroll made, just for fun (yes, I'm that nice) I said OK.

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the second
My second illumination project is after an original from around 1350-60. I started on this one because someone had written in to a fellow scribe requesting a scroll in that style with flowers but no people nor animals.

Read more about this project.

Illumination, the first
For my first bit of illumination I took the first cool image I saw in one of the books that the Aros Scriptorium owns and copied off that one. It was not too complicated but still would end up looking nice. I got some praise for it so I've decided that it came out rather well, call me conceited.
The finished product looks something like this, although I did add some white highlights in the green border to make it look like nice frolicking foliage.

As mentioned I did not get much data on my first work, so this is it for my premier scroll.

Introduction

Projects

Libraries with Online Manuscripts