I'm working on a charter (I think it's an Award of Arms) for the SCA.

And dammit! I Just Can't Get It Right.

You know how that is?

I haven't had that moment of inspiration.

The other one I did, I hummed and hawed about for a while, had a couple good ideas, but nothing Great.

Until I was just sitting and watching tv, and SMACK, right in the forehead.

Of course! It should have been obvious the first time.

Now...well, now it looks beautiful.

I have it out, to look at, because I still feel like altering minor things.

But really, other than a little touch up on the gold, maybe, and a bit of touch-up on the sails of the boat, I wouldn't fiddle with it.

I can't wait to see reactions to it.

Meanwhile, this one I'm working on right now..

Well, it's done later period, with curly 'leaves' coming off thin stalks, set in pillar style on either side of the words.

I painted another of this style, with the leaves in green, the stalks in gold/brown, and the background gradiated sky (blue at the top, white at the bottom, like many medieval illuminations have). It was well received.

This one, I decided to do red/warm-tone leaves, gold/brown stalks, with a background of wood grain.

It looks okay. It looks pretty good, even.

But it's not Great.

And that bothers me.

I think my main problem is that my red is very pink (I was trying to go for a very true red, but my goache is low quality and doesn't cover well), and the brown wood grain has very green undertones (which I was trying to avoid, by mixing a very red-brown into the darker green-brown I had). I didn't go with the red-brown on it's own, because it would have washed out the red leaves. I wanted the red leaves to hover above the surface, and the background to really drop back, and be a background.

Argh.

Anyway, maybe I'll flip over and paint something else for a while, in acrylic.

I haven't painted acrylic for a while. I'm feeling very surrealist today.

.

Rosie.

PS, Also, I'm on my period. That makes me ALL sorts of happy. Argh.

Before&After