The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

Getting An Idea.

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

Getting An Idea.
This is often the hardest part of doing a scroll. Like all of my fellow scribes, I have a backlog which I am slowly but surely working my way through. This usually goes from top (oldest request) to bottom (recent request from some poor shmoe who appears to be willing to wait for years to get a piece of work from me). But when inspiration strikes, a request can jump to the top of the list.

When my brother-in-law told me that he was to be admitted to the Order of the Laurel, I automatically added him to my backlog (I had done my sister's Pelican scroll and thought that Johann should have a matching piece). Of course, as a tentmaker, Johann's scroll should have tents in it, and what better place to find tents than on his web page? I browsed through Johann's Dragonwing Pavilions web site ( http://midtown.net/dragonwing/default.htm) and stumbled across an excellent photo of him ( http://midtown.net/dragonwing/whoweare.htm). I love doing portraits, so I thought I'd do one of Johann. Still, I had wanted to do something involving tents ... Nothing "gelled" and my husband Garth called me away to go to dinner.

We went over to a fast-food place and we talked about how it would have been neat to have a scroll ready for Johann's ceremony to surprise him with, except I had no ideas -- and inspiration struck. Out came the pen and I quickly scribbled the idea down on a napkin. Do the nice portrait of Johann on the left, sitting inside the West Royal pavilion, balanced by tents on the right, using all tents which Johann has made, enclosed in a wooden frame with Gothic cut-outs in the corners. No illuminated letter for the text, just a large first line. It will work! Yes! (Garth is philosophic about dealing with artist's angst and creative fits -- he just wanted to finish dinner before being dragged home by the feverish scribe.) The date was September 5th, 2001 (or if you'd rather, A.S. 36). Johann was to be laurel'd on September 29th, three weeks away.

-- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).