[Ansteorra] Awards (was Sound Systems in Court )

[Elaine Crittenden]

Why does the lettering take so long, well, there are things scribes and 
illuminators have to consider--- (pulling the veil on the scriptorium...)

Let's just confine this little ramble to a few aspects of the lettering.

"Hands" are to the calligrapher as "fonts" are to a web designer.
Some hands take longer, because they are more complex or more difficult to
execute.

An easy example might be Humanistic Minuscules (lower case "Roman," although
a true Roman hand in the time of the Caesars had no "little letters") versus
italic lettering. Humanistic minuscules are based on a perfect circle and
strokes that are horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. Pretty basic and easy
to control, provided the scribe keeps consistent the angle (from horizontal)
that the nib (which looks like a slot screwdriver) is canted when held.

The italic hand is based on a slanted oval. What gets tricky is keeping all
the letters in the alphabet the same width and angle of that oval. A fat
oval would need all the other letter widths to be fat, just as a thin oval
would need thin-width letters to go with it. Too, all the letters must have
the same axis (usually about 7 degrees from vertical) as that base-letter
"o." Amateur scribes mix letter widths and each letter's axis, making the
lettering in a line sometimes makes the line's letters look like varied-size
boats with masts wobbling all different directions in a harbor. Italic takes
longer than Humanistic minuscules.

Or try the letter heights:
If you "walk" the width of the nib you are using vertically as though it
were an engineer's divider, the letters of a particular alphabet usually
maintain the same optimal, visually-pleasing height throughout the line:
italic likes to be 5 pen nib widths high, carolingian likes to be 3 or 3 and
a half, gothic/blackletter usually runs about 6 pen nibs high, etc.

Try any of over two dozen other characteristics that make a hand's visual
coherency and keep it consistent.

We haven't talked about the text block shape, the interlinear (between the
lines) spacing, or  creating letters that didn't exist in that hand's time
period like "j" or "k" or even "w," if you want to go back that far in
Period. You want the modern letter to look like it fits with the hand taken
from an exemplar in Period which lacked that letter.

Then there's the actual lettering--ideally done as a team with the SCA
illuminator, if the scribe doesn't do all aspects alone (actually, not
Period, since there may have been as many as ten specialists working on a
single page in Period). The conscientious scribe works out the optimal pen
nib size (many times more than one size is needed) for the job in relation
to the text block size and the scroll size and any large initials inserted
into the text block's area and the hierarchy of hands if more than one hand
is needed to look Period, then using this information to set up the length
and distance apart of the base line of each line and style of hand on the
scroll.

Well, this can go on and on, but I am sure you get the idea....

In summary, the good scrolls just aren't dashed off. Scribes need as much
time in study, preparation and execution as a fighter or anyone else needs
in hours, days, and weeks of practice before they take on a competition,
especially if the scribe is to be competent to letter as a "combat scribe"
in the field, doing the layout's size and spacing and "hand" prototype of a
name, finding its center (if necessary), and then actually lettering on the
scroll with.... Oh, no, let's not talk about proper tools and the right ink
colors for now....

Lete
Just trying to be helpful (and informative...)





----------
> At Thursday, 3 July 2003, lisabetta <lisabetta at houston.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>Depends on what scroll it is, and how complex the scribe wants to
>>paint it.
>>Now for the lettering that too depends on which scroll it is, and
>>how experianced the scribe is. One painted charter can be painted
>>in as little as an hour for some and as many as 30 for some.. and
>>even longer for other.. and if it is an orginal scroll and not a
>>charter except that on avg 100 to 250 hours has been spent on it
>>total..
>>
>>hugs
>>betta
>>coastal region scribe
>>
>>At Thursday, 3 July 2003, you wrote:
>>
>>>In a message dated 7/3/2003 10:22:08 AM Central Standard Time,
>>>mtucker at airmail.net writes:
>>>
>>>> HI, Rosalia:
>>>>
>>>> Just to be sure: is that 250 *per reign* or *per year*?
>>>>
>>>
>>>Now the next question that should be asked is how many hrs does
>>it take to
>>>paint a (1) scroll. Then how long does it take to add the names.
>>>Donnel
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Ansteorra mailing list
>>>Ansteorra at ansteorra.org
>>>http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/ansteorra
>>>
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