Amia Turner – OSC – Scrawlings an Sccreccain

I was very happy to get a message from Fiona, letting me know that my apprentice sibling Amia was getting her Silver Crescent. I fired off a quick e-mail to the Tiger Signet (keeper of the scroll assignments) to put my name on the list for it, once the assignment was created.

The words were difficult to come up with. The write-up was excellent an almost worked on its own. In the end I used the EK template and expanded from there.

Know ye all that Our good and noble Amia Turner has worked long and hard for the benefit of Our Kingdom. As Seneschal for Barony of the Bridge, she has survived three pollings and a rapid officer turnover. She has served as autocrat of autocrats; mentoring those who aspire to be and overseeing many many many events on her own. Through demos, workshops for badges, and site negotiations, she has established and maintained a thriving relationship with the local Boy and Girl Scout communities. She has also established and maintained positive relationships with local libraries for public demos in support of their programs. Additionally, she offers her house for workshops regularly.

Therefore, at the request of the Companions and by Our wish, We, Wilhelm and Vienna König and Königin of the Eastrealm, do induct the noble Amia Turner into Our Order of the Silver Crescent and further do Grant her the exclusive right to bear these Arms: Azure, a seahorse and in chief two seeblatter Or.

In witness whereof, We set Our hand this 23rd day of March, Anno Societatis 53, at Black Rose Ball and Baronial Investiture in Our Barony of the Bridge.

The next challenge was the layout and design. I wrestled with this for about a month. I kept thinking of doing a cadel and littera bastarda, but then I”d see a nice illuminated manuscript with whitework and want to do that. In the end, the illumination won out. Specifically, The Pontifical of Renaud de Bar became my inspiration. The pages are beautiful, and I plan on digging deeper into what I can do with them. The back of the book, however, had a really nice gem, then unpainted sketches. The calligraphy had been finished but the illumination was not added, just the sketches and outlines. This was a nice treasure because it gave me an idea as to how the page was built up around the calligraphy.

This was not only my first piece with a serious level of whitework, but it also used the Lombardic Capitals instead of the penned script. This meant I had to mind my spacing for each capital and paint it in after. the ones I used were very simple compared to the manuscript, but being my first time, I erred on the side of simple.

There were a few fun little touches I added. I colored the capitals for Boy and Girl Scouts in their primary colors, in addition I swapped out the normal manuscript leaves for a period trefoil leaf, which is the base of the Girl Scouts of America logo.

In the end this was a LOT simpler in execution that I”d originally thought. The calligraphy took the most time.