Symonne de la Croix

                 MADDER LAKE ALCHEMY               By Lady Symonne de la Croix                                  14.3.20 More on my MADDER LAKE ALCHEMY            EXPERIMENT.... After 4days, there is a definate change happening to the water. There was a slight scum, perhaps the start of fermentation? Which I have read is not a problem and can perhaps help with the process. I think the discard water is getting less brown. There is pink staining on the container and the floating bits have finally sunk. The final wash will be with demineralised water.  (In period rain water or pure well water would have been used. But today even our rain water is tainted so demineralised or distilled would be the closest to then.) I chose to use tap water for this part of the process as it used so muc...

          GOTHIC TEXTURA SCRIPTS            By Lady Symonne de la Croix                            11.3.20 Both the Quadrata and the Prescisus evolved from the Early Gothic script and date from the end of the 12th century.  Paleographers are uncertain which of the two came first. It is possible that the Prescisus originated in southern England and spread to France, where scribes were inspired  to develop Quadrata. [Harris 1995 p55]  TEXTURA QUADRATA  (Black Letter, Old English) became extremely popular in the 13th century and remained so for the duration of the medieval era. With the advent of printing in the mid 15th century, the script became a model for the first typefaces- resulting in the public's continued famili...

                  Oak Gall Ink Success             By Lady Symonne de la Croix                          March 2020 So today I decided to be brave and try to make the oak gall ink that I had been soaking to help get the tannic acid out if it. After a lot if research I decided to use Ian the Green's recipe so I could get an idea of the ink making process before I tried a more complicated period recipe. Below is the basic process that I followed. 1. I boiled the oak galls which made the fluid a brown colour though not as dark as I thought would happen. 2. Then I sieved the galls out using a natural material. In period linen would have been used. The galls were very soft and squishy. 3. Then ferrous sylphate was added which instantly turned the ink black. A good sign. 4.  I added the powdered gum a...

                    Oak Gall Ink.               The Journey Begins        By Lady Symonne de la Croix                            1.3.20 After a lot of research, reading many historical recipes online and in different books on medieval treatise and watching utube "how to's", facebook enquiries to the Period Pigment Pallette (and other pages) and PM conversations, I decided to use Ian the Greens recipe from his blog https://scribescribbling.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/basic-ink-making-a-guide/ Ian has won many A&S competitions for his ink and is extremely knowledgeable. I decided on an additional step of soaking the oak galls as I wanted to get the most tannin from the galls as possible.  I dont know the quality of the ones I had and was worried about the possibility of having inferior galls wh...

                 Researching Oak Gall Ink               By Lady Symonne de la Croix                                      29.2.20 Researching how to make oak gall ink is proving to be more complex than I thought it would be. So many period recipes but which to choose. And when I choose I will have to work out what medieval weights were in relation to modern, as I have recently found out that they can be different.  But where to start looking?  Google hasnt been very helpful yet. Apparently a pound can be 12 ounces instead of 16. An added difficulty is being Australian,we work in metric so that adds to the equations.  Well here I go down another rabbit hole.....

                        VERDIGRIS BATH                   By Lady Symonne de la Croix                                  19.2.20 I started a Verdigris bath a bit over a month ago and today was harvest day! I used a double strength vinegar which seemed to speed along the process in the beginning. I think the warmth we have been experiencing helped also. I removed the copper from the vinegar and allowed it to dry. Interesting how the reaction only occurred on the parts that were above the vinegar.  I will need to figure out a way to suspend them in the fumes in the future. The vinegar went a very pretty blue. I decided to reuse it with the copper after I removed the verdigris. I scraped away the verdigris with a safety razor.  It came away quite easily....

                  DURER WOODCUT              By Lady Symonne de la Croix                               16.2.20                   On the weekend I entered into the River Haven Arts & Science competition which I am so pleased to say that I won. I am an absolute newby in woodcarving and printing so I was very proud of myself. I learnt so much researching this project and think I will try it again. Heres a link to my Google docs documentation https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CYRzhhK1MHo6l7n-CEvivKxVTrpUg_Lno8qK_dd9ZrE/edit?usp=drivesdk Enjoying SCA competitions very much. And surprisingly for me, I am enoying doing the documentation.