Thank you to everyone who attended!

It was lovely to see your work. 

Special thanks to Petrona for the framing/matting class.

Greetings unto the scribes of the Known World.

You are cordially invited to join us for a relaxing day of playing with paint. No entry fee or registration required. Lunch will not be provided per library rules, but there will be an hour break and a map will be provided to several casual restaurants within walking distance. The day will end at 3:00pm to allow time for cleanup.

Free parking is available in the east parking deck next to the library. Upon leaving, please stop at the first-floor desk for tickets for deck parking. There is additional free parking on the West side of the library.
*** Update to parking ***

The upgrades to the Normal Library Parking Lot are finished! Parking should be fine for the event, although the library does encourage all of us to park in the deck next to the library - validation for free parking at the first-floor desk.

Event Steward and Class Coordinator: Eithne ni Cheallaigh ThirChonaill (Sheila Hufeld) smhufel@ilstu.edu Contact at (309)452-0749 or (309) 825-0793

There will be an afternoon competition for Best Blank Scroll. We will choose an overall winner from 2 categories: calligraphy and illumination. The competition must be completed in 1 hour. Calligraphy competitors will be asked to write a simple passage with flourishes, rubrication, or decoration as they see fit. Illuminators will be asked to draw and paint a simple figure with ornamentation as they see fit. We know we are comparing apples to oranges, but wish to give all our scribes an opportunity to participate.

Baroness Petrona will be hosting a framing workshop from 11:00am to 12:30 pm. Bring your unframed scroll, an appropriate frame and $3-5 to cover the mat. Her Excellency will have a few basic color mat boards, some cutters, and will help you leave class with your scroll ready to hang.

Good Times!

Here are a few photos I took at the last Inkin' In Lincoln.

Welcome!

Busy Scribes

Maister Rory selling his wares from K&K Woodworks

Book marks, letter openers, and an assortment of wooden toys & puzzles.

Yes, we had lovely door prizes!

Scribes working by our lovely heraldry.

Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who helped make Inkin' In Lincoln such a lovely day!

The whole event ran very smoothly. Please, if you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see next time, let me know!

Ellen

Inkin' in Lincoln

Saturday, September 20, 2014
White Oak Township Building

202 North Lincoln

Carlock, IL 61725

9:00am to 5:00pm

Welcome all to a day of Scribal goodness!

We have a spacious hall with plenty of tables and chairs. Bring your scribal kit, projects, or just your lovely self! We have tools and supplies to share. Aspiring scribes of all skill levels are invited. A dayboard of snacks and beverages is included in the site fee of $5 per person. (Additional $5 non-member surcharge applies.) Please make checks payable to "Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. - Baile na Scolairi." 

Contact Ellen of the Scholars if you’d like to teach a class or schedule time and space for a specific activity. email: ellenofthescholars@yahoo.com or call: (309) 287-4962. 

The hall will be open from 9:00am to 5:00pm. The hall lighting is good, but you may wish to bring a small task light to help ‘illuminate’ your fine detail work. The Carlock site is just a few miles NorthWest of Bloomington/Normal off I-74.

Should your skills include cookery, additional items for the dayboard are always welcome! The site is BONE DRY. The building is also no smoking and does not allow animals. Please do not block the Fire Department Driveway! There should be plenty of parking behind the community building.

DIRECTIONS: Take your best route to I-74 between Bloomington and Peoria. Take exit 120 toward Carlock. Merge onto W. Washington St. (heading East toward Carlock). Turn left (North) onto Lincoln St. The site will be next to the Carlock Fire Department.

The exit is 120 from either direction on I-74.

Scroll down for photos from last year & a map to the site.

Merchants:
K&K Woodworks
Ellen of the Scholars

Instructors/Classes:

Corasande of Starrhill (Sandy Erickson) Numbers and Lines and Holes, oh My! 

Just what do those numbers and lines and holes mean on an Ames Lettering guide and on a Proportional Scale? I'll help you figure this out as I was helped at Pennsic. If you have one of these tools bring it, if not we will just use mine.

*** Canceled *** Heather Hall (Heather Rocchi) An Introduction to Cadels 1 hour

A discussion of techniques for producing late period, heavily flourished calligraphic capitals. 
Bring your favorite inking tools and paper. No fee.

*** Alas, Heather will not be available to teach her class. However, the Cadel class information is available on her web site: http://ladyheatherhall.com/ *** Updated 9/5/2014 ***

The shire of Baile na Scolairi is talking about hosting another session of Inkin' in Lincoln in September or October, 2014. We will probably use the same site in Carlock, Illinois. Stay tuned for details!

Beginner Scribal Tips and Hints

Basic Materials

1.     Archival is a term which means your paper, paints, and ink won’t fade or degrade over time. 

2.     Use paper with a smooth finish. The terms plate, vellum, and hot-press, all mean the paper is smooth enough for calligraphy. Hot-press Arches or Fabriano brand watercolor paper is what I usually use.

3.     Gouache or watercolor paints are good. Acrylic paints tend to look plastic. Oil paints don’t work on paper. The oil will eventually destroy the paper. Commercial ‘tempera’ paints are not good either – they can chip & fade.

4.     Buy a decent brush with a very pointy tip. A sharp point will help when you’re trying to paint details. I use a size #1 ‘round’ watercolor brush most often.

5.     A basic pencil, eraser, and ruler will be very useful for tracing, sketching & working out your designs. Use a white eraser. Colored erasers may leave color smudges or smears. ‘Kneaded’ erasers also work.

6.     I prefer a ‘dip’ pen which consists of a separate metal nib and a nib-holder. Cartridge pens also work well. Cutting a quill pen from a feather takes some practice but is the ideal tool for writing and drawing on real vellum (animal skin).

Suppliers:

In addition to checking out your local craft & hobby shops, here are a couple of online sources:

High-quality, inexpensive, brushes that have a fine-pointed tip:

http://www.kalishfinestbrushes.biz/

Watercolor paper and a wide variety of art supplies:

http://www.danielsmith.com/

Artist & Craftsman Supply - variety of art supplies

http://www.artistcraftsman.com/

Scribal supplies & instruction books:

http://www.johnnealbooks.com/

Griffin Dye Works: small lampwork mullers, glass grinding slabs, some pigments, brush rests, ink stones, ink bottles, mixing pans, etc.

Dry pigments & supplies for making your own paints:

http://www.kremerpigments.com/

M. Horowitz gold leaf

(718) 740-6175

horowitz@goldleafimportexport.com

221-23 Hartland Avenue, Hollis Hills, NY 11427

Random Tips & Tricks

1.      Tracing is totally period. There are descriptions and recipes for a variety of tracing papers in medieval writings.

2.      Straight edge – Use a ruler with cork backing or put several pieces of tape along the back to raise the edge from the paper slightly. This will keep ink from wicking under the ruler when you draw along the edge.

3.      White work – is a term used in the SCA to describe fine white lines and patterns painted over an area of color. 

4.      Thin the paint (watercolor or gouache) with water to a consistency like heavy cream. Thin it more if you need to get very thin lines or tiny details.

6.      Use the tip of your brush to get into corners and make fine lines. A light touch will give you more control. You can also use a bigger brush to lay in large areas of one color. A larger brush that comes to a very fine point will hold more paint and make it easier to do long lines than a very tiny brush with a few short hairs.

7.      Look at and study medieval examples. Be aware that photographs in books may not be true to the actual colors of the original. What you are looking at in a reproduction is printer’s ink, not gold leaf, shell gold, actual pigments or ink. Medieval colors may degrade or tarnish over time. Gray might be tarnished silver leaf. Also read the text and note the size of the original. Many photos are greatly enlarged. Medieval manuscript sizes varied from huge books several feet across to tiny ones an inch wide.

8.      Metal ‘dip pen’ nibs have a thin coating of varnish to keep them from rusting while they sit on the store shelf. You need to remove this coating before using the nib for the first time. Run the working tip of the nib through a small flame (candle or match) very briefly. The varnish will burn off and leave black soot. Wipe off the soot and you are ready to go. Be very careful not to burn yourself. The nib is metal and will heat up if you hold it in the flame for more than a moment.

9.      Pounce: gum sandarac is a type of pounce - a powdered substance applied to paper or vellum to improve the writing surface. If your ink ‘feathers’ or ‘beads up’ on the surface of your paper or vellum, tap a ‘pounce bag’ of gum sandarac over the surface. Dust off the excess. This will help keep your ink where you put it. (Pounce bag: cloth bag full of finely powdered gum sandarac. The powder sifts through the fibers of the bag when you tap it on the paper surface.) Pumice and several other substances are also used as pounce.

10.    To practice a new calligraphy hand, xerox a copy of the exemplar you wish to learn on the lightest setting. Match the width of your pen nib to the letters on the copy. Then trace over the letters to familiarize yourself with the strokes, letter shapes, and spacing of letters, words, and lines.

11.    Don’t become too attached to a specific pen nib. They will eventually wear down and corrode over time. Buy several of the same size in the brand you like.

12.    If your metal pen nib has a burr or is not quite sharp enough to give you the fine hairstroke lines you want, rub it across a piece of emery paper or crocus cloth several times to smooth it. Don’t sharpen it too much or it will slice through your paper. The finest grit of nail-polishing emery boards work well for this. (The variety used for polishing the fingernail surface.) Make sure the emery paper or crocus cloth is on a hard flat surface to ensure your nib retains its straight edge.

13.    Get on the scribal lists and ask questions. The scribes are very happy to talk to you and are very helpful and knowledgeable.

14.    Good website with instructions on learning left-handed calligraphy: http://www.iampeth.com/lessons_left-handed.php

15.    When using loose gold leaf, you can use a VERY clean pair of small scissors to cut through the leaf and the paper page of your leaf booklet. Cutting with the scissors crimps the edge of the gold leaf & paper slightly, so that you can use the paper to position the gold leaf (like patent leaf) without haveing to invest in a gilders cushion, tip, & knife. Make sure you don’t use the scissors for anything else or you may get oil or some other substance on the blades which will stick to the leaf. Wipe the scissor blades with a cotton ball dipped in rubbing alcohol to help clean them.

16.    You can use a straight-edge or ruler to help rule straight lines with a paint brush. You must firmly prop the straight-edge/ruler at an angle with your hand, or place a block under the straight-edge to raise it high enough to touch only the ferrule (metal part of brush that attaches bristles to handle). Hold the ferrule of the brush firmly against the straight edge and the bristle point just touching the paper. Then draw the brush steadily down the length of the straight edge to mark your line.