Pearish the Thought!

Pearish the Thought, a Sunday morning spritzer.

2 parts sweet white wine (of dubious quality)
1 part pear nectar
2 parts seltzer water
2 dashes orange liqueur
Garnish with a sprig of mint and a sprig of lemongrass

This made a fine morning pairing with lemon blueberry pancakes and a somewhat obscene amount of bacon. I was looking for something light and refreshing and was hoping to try a bottle of wine that I purchased for $2.97. Unsurprisingly, I was dubious of the quality of this bottle of wine and thought it might lend itself to being mixed with a lot of other ingredients.

This made for a fine way to spend a Sunday morning with friends.

New painted crafts

Hand painted flower pendants

Hand painted ceramic tiles

Hand painted ceramic bud vases

These crafts are already or soon will be available at Currant Thoughts. If you would like to commission a particular item, just contact me at melessee@gmail.com

Gems and Pearls

Inspired by folio 41 of the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau by the Master of Mary of Burgundy. Total size is 5 inches by 7 inches and the illumination was executed in four sessions with about 2-3 hours of work each.

Painting gems is a lot of effort in colors, but thankfully has a pretty high payoff. I did really enjoy working on the pearls.

I changed the blue cabochon at the bottom center to contain a badge for an award rather than the rather lovely naked lady from the original.

Wearable Miniatures

Hand-painted miniatures under glass and with a frame ready to hang from your necklace. I love flowers and am enamored of the Victorian language of flowers where each species signified a different emotion or concept.
Tonight I started with a Peach Blossom (meaning: I am your captive) and a Purple Columbine (meaning: Resolved to win). Each pa inting is 1.5 inches square with a message on the back that identifies the bloom and gives its Victorian meaning. Meanings of flowers have been obtained from the 1884 edition of Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway
I’d love feedback or suggestions

Cathedral Trimaris Silk Painting Insanity

After being asked to help dress up the pavilion in which we hold Kingdom courts in Trimaris, a plan was hatched to create six enormous silk paintings that looked like stained glass windows.  Each panel features a Trimarian icon and measures 54” wide x 9’ in length.
The current set of panels feature:

• St. Martin (as himself)
• St. Gryfyn (as herself)
• St. Patrick (Styled as Duke Bytor Fitzgerald)
• St. Timothy (Styled as Duke Mittion von Weald)
• St. Olaf (Styled as Duke Baldar Langstrider)
• St. Vitus (Styled as Baron Octavio de Flores)

The project was enormous and could not have been done without the combined efforts of about two dozen people from three different Baronies. These ladies and gentlemen worked beautifully together to make this project happen in less than two weeks of actual work time.
Photosynth by Ld Tristrum de Kerjean.

Design

• Baroness Lisabetta Maria da Firenze, OL
  • Wyvernwoode
• Mistress Finneadan ingen Ruadhan, OL
  • Marcaster

Planning and Organization

• Baroness Melangell merch Mariot, OP
  • Marcaster
• Baroness Maol Mide ingen Medra, OL, OP
  • Wyvernwoode

Execution of silk paintings

• Baroness Lisabetta Maria da Firenze, OL
  • Wyvernwoode
• Baroness Melangell merch Mariot, OP
  • Marcaster
• Baroness Maol Mide ingen Medra, OL, OP
  • Wyvernwoode
• Baroness Madeleine de Somerville
  • Wyvernwoode
• Baroness Jeanette de Lille
  • Darkwater
• HL Kale Adriene
  • Marcaster
• HL Arianna Rosa Cristina Veneziano
  • Wyvernwoode
• HL Bronach of Kildare
  • Wyvernwoode
• Lady Cristiana atte Mere
  • Marcaster
• Countess Grainne ingen Anloin meic Cerbaill
  • Wyvernwoode
• Lady Genevieve la Fey
  • Marcaster
• Lady Milesenda de Bourges
• Darkwater
• m’lord Brian of Wyvernwoode
  • Wyvernwoode
• m’lord Barbarossa of Wyvernwoode
  • Wyvernwoode
• m’lady Adelyn
  • Wyvernwoode
• Thorlief Ulfvarinson
  • Wyvernwoode

Assistance

• Baron Severin Visconti, KSCA
• Wyvernwoode
• Baron Damian von Blauwald
• Darkwater
• Duchess Maisie of Dunbarton OP, OR
• Wyvernwoode
• Duke Gregory Ahern, KSCA
• Wyvernwoode

Installation

• Earl Thomas the Incomplete, KSCA
• Marcaster
• Earl Lorcann an Dubhgaile, KSCA
• Wyvernwoode
• Baroness Maol Mide ingen Medra, OL, OP
• Wyvernwoode
• HL Bronach of Kildare
• Wyvernwoode
• m’lord Brian of Wyvernwoode
• Wyvernwoode
• m’lady Adelyn
• Wyvernwoode
• m’lord David Archer
• Marcaster

I am certain that I missed a few names of those who helped to put the banners up on Friday night. My apologies to anyone who participated and was not mentioned here. Just send me a message if you know someone I missed an I will be sure to correct the list. My thanks and eternal gratitude to all os those who assisted in this project.
We hope to continue this project with several other phases that will help to further improve the look and feel of Fletcher Pavilion.
More photos can be seen at Hon. Lady Bronach of Kildare’s Picasa photo album.

Cocktails and dreams

The limoncello project started on December 30th 2011 has reached it’s end tonight.
My friend Brian and I  cooked up a simple syrup using some of the lemon juice that we reserved from the zested lemon, strained out the zest and added the syrup.
The final product is still cooling but the first taste was quite good- all sweetness and lemons. So here is the yield for the limoncello project.

• 6 liters vodka base Limoncello
• 1 liter grain alcohol based Limoncello
• 1 liter white overproof rum base limncello

In addition, I put up several pints of vodka to infuse with herbs and flower flavors.

• 1 pint hibiscus flower vodka
• 1 pint lavender infused vodka
• 1 pint orange blossom infused vodka
• 1 pint ginger, lemongrass, lemon balm and lemon verbena infused vodka
• 1/4 pint ginger infused vodka

I hoping to use these infused vodkas to make some very delicious old time feel cocktails. I’ll be acquiring or making some lavender, ginger, orange and lemon sugars to pair with these infused vodkas.

P!nk

This incredibly pink page was inspired by a leaf from the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau, executed by the Master of Mary of Burgundy.

This manuscript is fascinating having originally been owned and likely commissioned by Engelbert II of Nassau whose heraldry and motto appear throughout the manuscript. The book later came into possession of Phillip the Fair and his heraldry was painted over the coat of arms on Engelbert.

I have to admit, this is a LOT of pink. After the shadows on the vines and flowers it gained some depth and the small hatching in pale pink and pale grey helped to tone down the blaring nature of the all pink background. It may be kind of girly, but it turned out fairly pretty in the end.

This page measures 5 inches in width by 7 inches in height and will be turned in to the Chart Signet for general kingdom use.

Inspired by Folio 79v- Hours of the Cross: None

Another Catherine of Cleves Folio

Based upon folio 157 of the hours of Catherine of Cleves, this border surrounded a miniature of St Elizabeth.

Produced circa 1440 in Utrecht by an anonymous Dutch artist known as the Master of Catherine of Cleves, this book includes beautiful tromp l’oeil borders and miniatures of increasing intricacy. This border is unique among design elements in the book.

Again, this piece was mainly done to get myself back into the design and styling needed for Kingdom use scrolls rather than intricate and elaborate commission pieces. Drawing, inking and illumination probably came to about 5-6 hours of work. I produced this page at Hoggetowne Medieval Faire while talking to guests so nailing down the time spent is really difficult. I turned the page in to the Chart Signet of Trimaris for general Kingdom use.

Painted Love

My Valentine’s Day present from John:

Inside the capitals are included elements of our SCA heraldry: his cross fleury and my compass star and butterfly. He had a small folder of research which included historical designs for the capitals and the heart which was inspired by a portion of a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign. John also showed me a whitework design that he had intended for inside the heart of a pendant tulip hanging from the inverted point of the heart and lovebirds with overlapping tails turned away from each other but each glancing back to regard the other. I hope some day to see that in paint and not just pencil.

Not surprisingly, there were tears.

Thank you my darling. I <3 you too.

Hoggetowne Medieval Faire 2012

  A few weeks ago I spent a weekend doing a demo of illumination at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire in Gainesville FL. The SCA demo area looked fantastic and we had a great range of arts and crafts on display including spinning, weaving, embroidery, dying, blacksmithing, metal casting, cooking, illumination and more.

While painting I easily talked to a hundred people over the weekend who were specifically interested in the scribal arts of the middle ages. One of my favorites was a girl of about seven who brought every member of her family over to see me and later told me “I think you are amazing at painting and also a very nice lady”. Precious. Shockingly, I managed to entirely finish one new piece and make it 80% of the way through a second even though I was constantly stopping to talk to guests.

I’m going to try to do a few days of illumination demo at the Bay Area Ren Faire over the next few months. Hopefully the experience will be just as great as Hoggetowne.

Thanks again to the Barony of An Crosaire for being so welcoming and accommodating. Special thanks to Thalassia for the bed and to Finnguala, Thalassia and Ryan for the great company!

Thoughts on Time Spent Painting

Time spent on these illuminations is a funny thing as the great effort of these pieces is somewhat devalued by the fact that they are handed out by the King and Queen free of charge to recipients. Scribes are the only artisans who are regularly expected to give away their art. This is why, years ago, I lobbied for and was granted Kingdom funds to purchase scribal supplies for members of the Trimaris College of Scribes and thankfully this funding is still being provided. We sometimes hold fundraisers and occasionally profits from events are donated to this account.

For those of you planning to volunteer at Gulf Wars, you can indicate the Trimaris College of Scribes as the recipient of the war profit split derived from your volunteer hours.

When I create commission pieces I have to ask for the recipient to pay the materials and framing costs. I didn’t always do this but one day I figured out what I had spent on several pieces I had created and realized that I was running myself into a financial hole. This is also why I have been working on the speed of my pieces and trying to limit myself to less than 5 or 6 hours per illuminated page for Kingdom use.

I have found that I must balance the use of my time and find the point where I can produce a good number of very good pieces rather than just one extraordinary piece so I can be more helpful in my contributions and more responsible with my personal time. I work full time and have several hobbies so I have to be realistic about how much time I can dedicate to this craft that I love, but from which I do not generally profit. 

The illustrations on this page were created for a brochure that I illustrated in 2009.

I wanna see your Peacock… feathers

This border is based upon a page from the Hours of Engelbert of Nassau which was illuminated by a Flemish artist known only as The Master of Mary of Burgundy. Painted bear Brussels circa 1485, this book was created for Englebert II, Duke of Nassau. This border of tromp l’oeil peacock feathers was inspired by folio 97, verso. 
This border is 5 inches by 7 inches, much smaller than usual SCA illumination used for awards but I was concerned that the intricacy of design would not scale well any larger.

I used this border for a Pelican scroll for Countess Grainne but I wanted to try just the border to see if this sort of design might be both acceptable for Kingdom use and a good use of time. The trouble with blank borders is that sometimes it can be hard to find inspiration when you are illuminating for an unknown recipient.

Also, I have found that I must balance the use of my time and find the point where I can produce a good number of very good pieces rather than just one extraordinary piece so I can be more helpful in my contributions. I created this piece in about 4-5 hours but I mucked about with the detailing for longer than I should have.