Racaire's Embroidery & Needlework…

8th Scroll – AoA (blank)

Worst case for a blank scroll? …the blank scroll is finished and you recognize that you forgot the free space for the name of the recipient… that’s what happened here – I struggled with the English text and forgot the free space for the name – lucky me that I had enough space at the end for “For Our noble servant…” – I hope this saves the scroll from the paper basket and makes it useable again for an AoA scroll…

Here the detail of my “Dürer” inspired drawing:

…and here the pictures for my inspiration – first for the picture on the left and the clouds:

For the picture on the right (the mountains and the small village):

For the castle on top of the mountains on the right side and the birds:

7th Scroll – AoA (blank)

After all embroidery for Anya’s cloak and because my right wrist hurts since I pealed 2kg Kiwis and cut it to small pieces for my caramelized Kiwi marmalade (I don’t like the word jam very much and marmalade looks like our word for jam here in Austria – “Marmelade” ) – therefore I decided to do something relaxing – practising my Bastarda hand and do another AoA scroll (blank) – I love to do scroll blanks because I don’t have to worry about the recipient (his/her persona, time,…) and also because I know that there is always a great need for scrolls…

…at the picture above you can see the Dürer picture of which I tried to redraw some parts – here are the parts that inspired me to try to redraw them:

For the picture on the left side:

For the picture on the right side:

For the lovely small insect on the right side of the bottom line:

For the small stone on the left side of the bottom line:

Why a bottom line? …because, when I finished the scroll, I had the feeling that it looked incomplete – I added the insect and the stone but it still didn’t look right … and than I knew what was missing … and the bottom line connected both drawing at the bottom and made the scroll look more ‘complete’ for me

Btw. here is the inspiration for the decoration above and underneath the field for the coat of arms – after I did the line for one side of the field for the coat of Arms I saw that it was too long and I shortened it by inserting a second, additional field for the coat of Arms and than, because the distance above and underneath was rather big, I looked out for a nice decoration inbetween this parts:

…and mistakes are period *lol* …if you take a look at the first line, you’ll find a rather big break  in the word ‘kno_w’ – when I started to write the w, I saw that I was too much right to connect the letters to the word that it should be – therefore I inserted this small decorating line at the back of the w… *lol* good that mistakes are period I think my solution is rather easy and most people wont even recognize it if they don’t read my blog…

6th Scroll – AoA (blank)

I used Schreibtinte / Writing ink – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte “Scabiosa” (Rohrer & Klinger, Leipzig-Co.) for this scroll and again I tried to copy a small part from a Dürer picture

5th Scroll – AoA (blank)

Yesterday I finished another AoA scroll blank (size A5) – unfortunately there is not much place left for the year and the event name, but hopefully that won’t matter… I think my Bastarda hand is getting better with each scroll and I love the “A” letter initial that I tried for this scroll blank…

Instead of Nan-King Encre de Chine – intense indian ink (Lefrac & Bourgeois) or the Schreibtinte / Writing ink – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte “Salix” (Rohrer & Klinger, Leipzig-Co.), that I used for the 4th scroll, I used Schreibtinte / Writing ink – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte “Scabiosa” (Rohrer & Klinger, Leipzig-Co.) for this scroll and I am very pleased with the color

4th Scroll – AoA (blank)

Today I finished another AoA scroll blank (size A5).

Normally I use black Nan-King Encre de Chine – intense indian ink (Lefrac & Bourgeois) but today I tried to work with Schreibtinte / Writing ink – Eisen-Gallus-Tinte “Salix” (Rohrer & Klinger, Leipzig-Co.)

…and again I tried to copy a small part from a Dürer picture  for the bottom

3rd Scroll – AoA (blank)

Recently I saw a gorgeous scroll done by my friend Melisende from Insulae Draconis (England) and decided that I really should practise my Bastarda hand – and how could I practise a hand better than doing another scroll… …and here is the result – my 3rd scroll – this time again an AoA (Award of Arms) scroll

…this here was my workplace for this project – normally this is our dining table – I used my embroidery basket to get an inclination of about 30° which makes writing for me much easier than if my drawing plate would lay flat on the table…

I love Melisendes scrolls and especially the scroll she made for Gyles catched my eye.
After the calligraphy was done I decided to add something at the bottom of my scroll – therefore I took a look in one of my books about the work of Dürer and found this nice book,… and decided to copy it as good as possible

…and this is the result – I hope you like it
I admit that I had to face some problems and that I made some mistakes while I was writing down the text, but with the help of a very sharp blade – I think I got it from Mistress Bridget when I started with calligraphy and illumination and it is one of the most useful gifts I ever got for calligraphy – I got rid of the mistakes and now I am quite pleased with the result