Illumination: DANCING FOXES

Earlier this month, I went to an SCA event called "At the Sign of the Dancing Fox." To raise money for the event, a silent auction was held. This event is one of my favorite SCA events to go to. There is live medieval music played on period instruments, dancing, and a dressing the fox competition. (Contestants purchase a small plush fox or other animal, and sew garb for their animal and write up a story about it.) With that in mind, my contribution to the silent auction just had to be an illumination of some garbed dancing foxes with another garbed fox playing music. At least these dancers actually look like they are dancing, but it's still nice to have a musician nearby.

First I made this sketch of foxes dancing. Because I wasn't striving for authenticity, I sketched it out at a size larger than I planned on the final being, and then scanned it. I cleaned up a few things, printed it out to size (5.5 in. x 3.5 in), and taped it to a light box.

I taped a piece of hot press bristol board down over the printed sketch and carefully traced the sketch, and then inked. The final art was painted with gouache and water color. 

To properly get the feeling of medieval dancing, I referred to these images:

from the Missel de Montierneuf - BNF Latin873 f21

Marginalia from the Romance of Alexander MS Bodleian 264, France c. 1338-44f

Here is the final illumination, ready to go to "At the Sign of the Dancing Fox." Apparently, there had been a bidding war for it, and I have no idea who ended up winning the bid, as I had stepped out of the room at the moment the winning bid was being announced.

Illumination: PAGE FROM THE MANESISCHE LIEDERHANDSCHRIFT

This is a recreation of an illumination from the Codex Manesse, also know as the Manessische Liederhandschrift. This piece was my entry into the St. Eligius Arts & Sciences Competition of a local chapter of the SCA. I entered in the Novice level of the Paper & Ink Category. I had decided to recreate this particular image because it was very similar to  a framed print of an image from the Codex Manesse in that my parents had when I was growing up, and I always liked the style of the art. I ended up winning in two categories: the overall Novice category and the overall Paper & Ink category. 

This was very different from anything I would normally do because I was attempting to copy the original as closely as possible. The pencil and ink drawings were all done on the same paper that finished gouache painting was going to be done on. No scanning the sketch and moving things around in Photoshop. Whatever I inked was going to stay that way. Below are the pencil sketch and the ink sketch, both of which I documented before going to the next step.

Here is what the original illumination looks like:

Der Schenk von Limpburg, Codex Manesse.
Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, Bl. 082v,
 Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift, Zürich c. 1300-1340 

I ended up framing the illumination and giving it to my father for Christmas. It's now hanging in his house with two framed prints of two other pages from the Codex Manesse.

Illumination: SCA AWARD SCROLL

Back in the summer of 2018, my family and I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval reenactment group. In the SCA, members can choose to pursue many of the arts and sciences of the middle chooses. I decided to try my hand at illumination, which really wasn't all that much of a stretch from how I personally like to work. One of the things that illuminators in the SCA do is to create art for the various scrolls that are awarded to members for a wide range of things. I was asked to create this particular scroll that was being awarded to a friend of mine. She was being granted the Order of the Green Lantern in acknowledgement of her skill, sharing and teaching of medieval dance, embroidery and games. My only requirement was to include the heraldic device of the Order, which happens to be a silver lantern set on a background of a green star. Later, I passed the scroll on to another person for the calligraphy to be added.

I decided to incorporate images showing all of the activities she had taught to others. She is primarily known for her skill and love of dance, so the main image at the top shows a group of medieval dancers. Since medieval dances in art often look like a bunch of people just standing around, they need to show two musicians to convey that this is dancing, and not just people standing around. The illuminated letter B shows my friend in the middle of embroidering something (I referred to a photograph for that!), and the marginalia at the bottom is supposed to be the award recipient and her husband playing a game of Nine Man Morris.

I had to do a lot of image research to pull this off. Following are several images that I referred to in the process of sketching out this scroll.  The below image is the one I referred to for the basic layout of the page.

From the Romance of Alexander, MS Bodleian 264, France c. 1338-44

For the main image, I referred to this group of dancer from the Roman de la Rose. Notice how the dancers all look like a bunch of people just standing around holding hands? Thank goodness the shawm player and bagpiper are there to clarify things.

"Mirth and Gladness" from the Roman de la Rose, Yates Thompson 21, f. 8v, France c. 1380

The marginalia of many medieval manuscripts contain all kinds of images from everyday life and the Romance of Alexander is no exception. There, I found many instances of couples playing medieval board games, so I was able to find reference for the Nine Man Morris playing couple figured at the bottom of the scroll.

From the Romance of Alexander, MS Bodleian 264, France c. 1338-44