Finally, after sooooo many days, my new computer arrived today and I am able again to work at new postings for my blog. And to celebrate this new beginning as well as my new laptop, I would like to start my very first posting and show you something I am really very proud of – the “Sable Sword” scroll I made for my husband:
It took several days to work out the outlines, add all the paint and small details. I really think that I never worked as hard and long on a scroll as on this “Sable Sword” scroll for my husband. But when I think back to the day when he finally received his “Sable Sword” award and realized that his “Grant of Arms” scroll at which I was working for several days was actually a “Sable Sword” award for him, I can say that it was definitely worth it. The expression on his face was priceless! *lol*
Well, I really enjoy creating scrolls which are a little bit different and when I stumbled upon a picture from a manuscript from 1441 depicting the Trojan war, I immediately knew that it would be a perfect inspiration for a scroll for my husband. And what shall I say, when I showed my husband my period inspiration, he really liked my idea and therefore I immediately started working at his new scroll.
When I started with the scroll, I totally planned to make it a “Grant of Arms” scroll for my sweetheart. I had not even finished my work at the basic outlines when I got a message from a good friend asking me if I was up for a very special shenanigan. Sure, I replied, and learned that this certain shenanigan was quite special – he asked me if I would like to provide the scroll for a very special award – the “Sable Sword” – which my husband was going to receive at a future event and about which I was not allowed to tell him anything… *lol*
The timing could not have been better as I already started working on his “Grant of Arms“. This made it much easier for my to disguise my work for his future award – I just needed to pretend that I was working on his long overdue “Grant of Arms” scroll… *giggle*
…but let’s cut a long story short and take a look at my husbands “Sable Sword” scroll before I actually delivered it at the event:
What intrigued me most about the period inspiration for this “Sable Sword” scroll was actually the depiction of the Trojan War – all the little flames, the blood and the Trojan horse. I think that the fighters in front of the city walls are my sweethearts most favorite detail and the fact that they are using one of his most favorite weapons – the long sword. He especially loved the latter detail.
And what shall I say – the idea of slaughtering my enemies and burning down a whole city – even if just on paper, though I am normally a very peace-loving person – seemed quite appealing to me. And I really loved that this scroll would be so very different to any other scroll I made and saw till now… 🙂
Concerning the period inspiration – I stayed as close as possible to my inspiration. Due to enlarging the fighters in the front I had to make some concessions concerning the top and alter the “skyline” a little bit to be able to get more space for the calligraphy. Furthermore I also had to come up with a solution to make some space for the signatures of our King and Queen and was very glad that they didn’t object to my quite uncommon idea. And though I even made some other changes, I tried to stay as true as possible to the overall appearance of the period inspiration.
And while I was practicing some calligraphy to get my hand as small as possible to fit all the text into the small text space of my husbands “Sable Sword” scroll, I finished some new “Award of Arms” blank scrolls for my kingdom – the Kingdom of Meridies:
As you can see on the pictures above, I was playing around with some period embellishments to make the simple calligraphy of the scrolls more appealing. 🙂
…and now I have to focus at my work for our new crafting room. Well, I have to admit that after I moved into my very first crafting room in the house, I soon realized that I did’t have enough space to work on my projects there. Therefore my husband and I agreed to move the computers into the smaller room and to adapt the bigger room for our crafting projects.
It will take some more days until I am able to finish the flooring in the new crafting room – I have to remove the old carpet first in order to put in some more cat & dog friendly flooring. And then I have to move all my crafting supplies and books to the new room while my dear husband sets up some space for our computer equipment.
Well, I am not really thrilled about all this work and the dirt it produces but the outlook on a much bigger working space for future projects definitely keeps me going. I can’t wait to get more crafting space and to be able to set up a permanent calligraphy table, a cutting table for my future sewing projects and to have much more space for my crafting supplies and books…
And not only that, I am also looking forward to my future work space in the computer room where I can finally access my scanner and my husbands printer without problems. It will definitely make my work much easier in the future. Ok, well, as soon as I finished migrating all my pictures and files to my new computer and managed to organize more of my countless museum pictures… 😀
Yeah, I am keeping my husband and myself more than busy but when you have a certain goal it’s definitely worth fighting for. And my husband actually likes the idea that as soon as I have more space, he will get more period clothing and finally maybe also a “Grant of Arms” scroll to accompany his “Sable Sword”. At the moment he is more than patient with me and helps me as good as he can. I highly appreciate it as I can be hard to deal with when I get into my stubborn mood and want to finish a big project asap…
Btw. – no worries – I have a beautiful embroidery project to post about while I am working at my future crafting room – I will post more about it soon… 🙂
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