This scroll is a Heart of Dragonsspine. A fun little award, it requires that the receiver doesn’t have an AoA.
When I was assigned it, I had to giggle. The name Evil Bishop wasn’t one I had come across before. I also felt they would probably be open to a more fun scroll with skeletons.
I did some digging, as there is a multitude of danse macabre illuminations. I, however, ended up settling on “Der Ackermann aus Böhmen” (The Ploughman from Bohemia). This is a German tale from 1409. It is of a man whose wife has died, and his conversation with Death.
You can view the full manuscript here. You can also read the full text both in German and english translation online.
The story aside, I very much enjoyed the layout. A strong image with a block of text below. Perfect for awards.
The paper for this award was a 5×7 pergamanata, meaning that both the calligraphy and illumination would need to be tiny to fit.
Not feeling confident in my fledgling calligraphy skills, I did trace over the text. A good choice, as I didn’t have a tiny nib and had to resort to a micron.
You can see here that the original calligraphy is very flowy.
Once I got the calligraphy down, I started painting. Once again, the solid red background was tricky. I worked hard to try and smooth it out, keeping in mind that Perg can not take a ton of water. Being a smaller space than my last solid background, I think it came out better. As always a point to work on.
This took several nights of painting as I waited for things to dry. But the final product was worth it.
Sadly, it took the Baron and Baroness a bit to catch up to the individual, so I wasn’t able to see it bestowed. However, I can now share it with all of you.
