Inspired by the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht

A while ago, I worked on a scroll for Tadhg Sotal O Neill's Court Baroncy. I wanted to make it epic, and challenge myself, so this one has a lot to it. 

It is based on the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht
Where: Flemish, Bruges
When: 1525-1530
Artist: Simon Bening
Size: 6 5/8" x 4 1/2"
Materials: Parchment, tempera, gold leaf & paint, ink.
All of this info, along with the digitizations of the pages can be found online at the Getty Museum, here. On the right there is a small 'Page through the book' button to view the images. Later in the post I will include some of the inspiration images.

My rendition was done on watercolor paper made by an Italian company (Fabriano) that has been around since before the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht was illuminated. I scaled up the work to make it a more common SCA award size and to be able to fit all the text that Will Parris wrote for it. 

The following are the progress pictures of this project, with notes strewn throughout.

I decided to make it like it was two pages of the book. Here I have blocked out the variously sized margins.

Beginning to fill in the architectural elements. I penciled them in, but there's also images with upped contrast so you can see what's going on.

This was the page that the above above sketches are based on. I freehand the sketches because I feel it makes me learn the style a lot better if I have to think about making the shapes instead of tracing them. So it won't turn out exactly like the original, but I feel that's a good thing.

We so frequently ignore the images inside the margins because that's where we end up putting in the words, but I decided I wanted to include one. I liked this feast scene as he was recognized for making feasts in the SCA, and I could incorporate people of note easily. Mick is sitting in the back left, next to King Maynard (who is sitting next to his lovely Queen Liadain), who where the Royalty to award him his Baroncy. I put myself (illuminator and calligrapher) in the bottom center left with my artist's mark hanging from my belt, and Will (word composer) in the bottom left with his heraldry, a cinkfoil, on his pouch. The rest of the people do not represent anyone specific.

This is the feast scene I was basing it off of. No, I was not trying to make any religious parallels...

This was the bottom and side of the right page. 

This is the page that my right page is based on. I figured the man on the right was appropriate as using a pole arm. I changed the man on the bottom to be holding a sword. I also incorporated a crest below the column on the right.

Completed sketch.

Then I moved on to the calligraphy. Calligraphy makes me infinitely more nervous that painting. Painting is like meditating while calligraphing is like a very intense game of operation. I think this was back when I was using my speedball nibs. I left space for the capitals to be painted in. I also made some mistakes which I scraped off and fixed.

The full body of text.

This is the next picture I have, I wish I had one before I had done the shading on everything. Fabric looks so weird without the folds shaded in, and always makes me nervous, but it always turns out fine. That escarbuncle was a bit of a challenge not to get red in. I enjoyed painting the stools.

I then filled in the table with settings and food. I did some of the hair.

Hair is hard, but I think I did ok :)

Then I moved on the paint the background of the architectural margins, complete with drop shadows.

Me adding in the base color for the 'gold' parts.

The completed piece. I added the banners of his household to either side of the Aethelmearc heraldry. I made up the capital T based on the other large capitols in the prayer book. There are six little capital letters that are supposed to be in front of pearls, representing the six pearls on a Baron's coronet. They also start the six sentences outlining the awesome deeds of Tadhg Sotal O Neill. This picture I also don't think does the yellow in the painting justice, my phone is not the best camera.

I had a lot of fun making this, it was definitely a challenge! There will be more process posts on others of my scrolls to come!
Thanks for stopping by!!