More Medieval Madness

Here's a few more pages from the medieval scrapbook. Once again the scanner is giving me a few problems with glare from the white backgrounds so the colour here is not as true as it should be. This first page design has been taken form a germanic medieval text and is reproduced as true to colour and design as I was capable of (except for the bleep, bleep scanner of course). The reason for the choice was the couple in the photograph, my brother and his good lady, have Germanic medieval personalities so this seemed the right choice for their picture. Here they are at their investiture as the new Baron and Baroness of Riverhaven, their local group. Ah, yes, there are titles, position and power to be had!

This photograph for the next page was quite small after trimming away unwanted distractions from the subjects (the Baron and Baroness at the feast), and so I have chosen a persian design for the page and made their photo the centrpiece for the design. Again the design is faithful in both colour and pattern to the original medival design but without the original centrepiece.

This design for this page came form a French book of Hours, one of my personal favourites. I love the vine and scroll leaves and birds. The photo is of the then King and Queen (viking personas) after the fromal celebrations in their relaxing and less formal mode. I know the design is french and they are vikings but I like this design!!!

This next one I don't remember where the style has come from. I think it was from a book of hours as well, correct me if I'm wrong. The photo is of the brother peeking over his new tourney shield, huzzah! I just need to finish the wording for the page to be completed.

And finally the blast of spring colour! Here they are the Baron and Baroness enjoying the tourney held next day in honour of their investiture. This design was taken from another book of hours, Italian I think from memory. The original was just beautiful. Again I have reproduced the colour as best I was able to stay faithful to the original designs, but again the thing with the scanner and glare. If only I could go back and age the paper!


There you have it, a little glimpse of medieval fun in todays settings. Now that's an anachronism!

Medieval Mayhem

The secret project is slowly coming along. This week saw me celebrate my 46th birthday, although as usual things didn't go to plan. There was an unexpected suprise which was lovely and my fabulous children cooked me a birthday dinner, which I loved. Unfortunately I have been sick for the last few days with Gastro, nothing to do with my fab children's culinary attempts but through other means. This has resulted in little arty enterprises for the last week and so I thought I would share with you all a project I undertook some time ago, a medieval book of sorts.

I was for some time a member of the SCA (otherwise known as the Society for Creative Anachronism, an anachronism being a thing out of it's own time or place). Here I frolicked around in medieval clothes, learned medieval skills such as costuming (a personal favourite), cooking (yum, yum), embroidery and an endless list of other skills which I thoroughly enjoyed, while watching the fighting prowess and skills of the those so inclined within the group (fab entertainment let me tell you). Unfortunatley due to more mundane reasons, eg job, travel, costs etc, it became difficult to continue my involvement in the group but I wanted to do justice to some of my photos from this time rather than just the usual scrapbook type pages which although lovely would not have been in keeping with the overall experience, and so I decided to embark on a medieval style scrapbook. After lots of research and some frustration over my own lack of skills, especially as a painter, the book was born. Here's a few pics...

The designs in the above pics were all copied from various original medieval designs from books, and manuscripts of the period and from a variety of countries. They have been copied then hand painted in an effort to faithfully reproduce the original works and designs. It is difficult to reproduce them faithfully here as the scanner tends to focus on the backgrounds and so glare is an issue. Oh well it's all a learning experience and if I decide to do another some day I would likely apply paper ageing techniques (I had learned little about them at the time I produced this work) to the background papers in an effort to produce something that looks more aged.

Ah well, there it is, a wonderful weekend to you all and to all our southern friends I am thinking cooler thoughts for you all.