Thursday...already?

[ianuk]

It seems odd that yesterday as Thursday but for the amount of stuff I have accomplished this week I shouldn't be surprised that it was thursday. Work was good. Got lots accomplished and then headed home. I was worried that I was going to get rained out since it was spitting on me when I parked the car but I put more soil on my strawberries and then got changed to bike.

The monsoon only hit the mountains though even when I was biking I was fighting the wind a lot. It helped me part of the way. I really need to figure out why my bike comp is broke but my GPS said I went 14.9mph. I'm not sure how much I believe that since it had a longer distance and I went the same yesterday. I need to know what I'm doing. Anyhoo. I was quicker than Tuesday and that mattered. It felt harder but I was pushing hard to try to beat the storm which didn't hit.

Got done, changed and made us dinner. I really luv the fact that I can grill all year round in Tucson. It makes things so much easier. Mel was happy to have dinner waiting. He's been working hard on the project for Viktor and its coming along nicely.

I got down to working on the scroll and am very happy to say I have about an hour or so left of work to do on it. I have to fix a couple of callig oop's and paint smudges, ink around the fancy letters and I should be done...like a week ahead of time. WOW! I'm happy about that. While working on this I was watching the 2nd disk of castle. OMG...so much fun. After painting I got my fiber together, got the spinning off of my drop spindle that I had done at the retreat and at home and started spinning for Tour de Fleece. I got sucked into it and it was going really well. Still haven't gotten off park and draft but I'm going okay. YAY!

So, here are pictures of the progress from last night:

Final of the bottom miniature:


Final of top miniature:


Spinning

Comments

[atensibilla.livejournal.com]

Saw you crossing on your bike at the Base Gate last night. You look cute in your gear.

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! *blush*

[aliskye.livejournal.com]

I love the scroll! It's just fabulous!

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

I'm rather happy with it myself. I challenged myself a lot with this piece since it was 1) a whole new painting style in a new medium (with ink), and 2) drawing things myself

I learned a lot. I'm going to have lots of "lessons learned" about this project for my documentation. Which still needs to get finished.

[aliskye.livejournal.com]

I hope you post your "lessons learned" on this. I'm very curious about the technique. Is it a combination of paint and ink? Are you painting the ink with a brush or a pen?

I'm intrigued! ;)

[raventhourne.livejournal.com]

I will post a good lesson's learned here and I'll put my documentation up on my website after the competition.

I used Ink with a brush for the painting. I use Blott's Iron Gall Ink (http://www.scribblers.co.uk/acatalog/Iron_Gall_Ink.html) and since I'm not using it on vellum is doesn't oxidize completely so things stay grey.

I use about 5-6 drops of ink per 1/2 teaspoon of water to do my medium tones, slightly less than that for the light tones and then full for the dark stuff. The trick with this technique is that it builds really well but you can't lighten thing once its on the page without scraping. That is why the face of the mini in the lower left of the small mini is dark..I put my brush in the wrong concentration. Sighs.

For the white I use Dr. PH Martin's bleed proof white. It is thick and doesn't sink into the colors very much like lead white.

ladyaneira has some great articles on her website and in the TI for how to do this technique. Her's is a good resource I wish I had read completely before starting. I should not have fully inked anything that wasn't "dark" but it still looks nice though not quite as ethereal as the originals.

[aliskye.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll look foward to seeing your documentation and will check out Ladyaneira's lj in the meantime.

[msaimeesue.livejournal.com]

Wow- the scroll is looking amazing!