Goutte Charter

Goutte Charter
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial

This is the second charter I've painted. (It's too big for my scanner so I took a photo of it, that's why it's a little wonky.)

Click on the photo to go to my Flickr page, where you can look at larger sizes to see more of the detail.

This is a Goutte de Sang, drop of blood, the An Tir grant-level award for service. Charters come with the calligraphy (missing the recipient's name and the date which will be added later) and with black outlines for the images. I like to describe them as coloring books that you do with paint.

I chose the red borders to bring out the red drops, and the golden-yellow to accent the gold of the field. I actually wouldn't have chosen to use gold paint on this (I don't like it), but the Gouttes themselves were already painted when I got this. I did end up going over the gold with my own gold paint, which was shinier and more eye-catching than the one it came with and ended up looking great. I think I will reconsider my stance on gold paint. I'm proud of the white work, even though I think it might be anachronistic for this layout and style. But I couldn't stand having those big areas of blank color! I must secretly be a real medieval scribe.