The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

Illumination Step By Step.

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

Illumination Step By Step.
This is how the illumination looked when I was about half-way finished. Before I started, I used masking tape to affix the scroll to a drawing board. The tape went about 1/8 of an inch onto the paper all the way around and would keep the paper from buckling when a the paint was applied. I also used masking tape to mask off the area inside the "frame" -- when masking an area for paint, it's important to press the tape firmly to the surface of the paper only along the edge next to the area being painted -- try not to really rub the tape down firmly anywhere else, as that'll make it harder to remove afterwards.

Additionally, I masked off the area of the sky. The "skyline" was uncomplicated enough that I might have gone around the tent tops freehand, but I would have had to paint the triangle inside that main tent rope coming of the royal pavilion on the left separately, and most likely it wouldn't have matched the rest of the sky. Rather than mess about with it, I laid a strip of masking tape down over the rope and used a disposable surgical scalpel (you can use an X-acto knife) to cut the bumpy outline of the rope into both sides and peel the rest of the tape away. I also used the scalpel to cut around the tent tops. There are commercial products available for this sort of thing, usually found with the watercolor supplies ("Miskit" is one). I've found that masking tape works just as well, especially on heavy paper. If you like to work on 2 ply paper, you'd probably be better off with one of the liquid masking compounds. Be careful with this stuff; sometimes the color in the compound can dye your paper if you get a bad batch.

The sky was painted using a mixture of permanent white and ultramarine, with a touch of prussian blue added. I mixed up a really big batch of this, transferred some to another mixing dish and added more white, then took more into another dish and add a bit more blue. So my palette (I use a round plastic one with a big central depression surrounded by ten smaller depressions) held sky blue, light blue, dark blue, ultramarine, permanent white, and a dab of prussian blue in the center well.

Using the darker blue, I laid down a good slopping lot of it along the upper edge of the sky. I rinsed the brush quickly, then picked up the medium blue and did the majority of the sky area, working it in well with the darker stripe at the upper edge. A quick rinse, then the very palest blue was done along the lowest edge, right between those two "lowest" tents. At this point, the entire sky is still damp. I dipped into a bit of white paint and ran it across a paper towel to remove most of the paint, then applied some strokes of white onto the sky for a cirrus cloud effect. The damp surface dispersed the paint, however, so I didn't get the wispy, cirrus effect I wanted -- it looked streaky and blobby instead of wispy. I picked up a brush with the medium sky blue on it and went over that spot; blew on it gently to encourage it to dry a bit, then tried again Nope; too jarring, and the sky was drying rapidly. I grabbed a clean brush, dipped it into water, brushed it against a paper towel to make sure the brush wasn't sopping wet, and quickly went over the entire sky. This faded the white streaks into just faint white haze. It still wasn't quite the cirrus cloud look, but instead gave the sky that filmy appearance it can get in California the day before some weather moves in. This was enough to lend visual interest to the sky and give it some depth. Before everything dried, I squeezed out a smidgen of alizarin crimson, put the merest hint of it onto a brush, and ran a few strokes of that into the darkest upper part of the sky. This faint hint of a contrasting color saved the sky from a dull, monochrome appearance, which is a trick I picked up from my watercolor painting teacher. Another trick -- when doing snow, add a light wash of orange over the blue shadows and you'll be amazed how it lights everything up.

Once the sky dried thoroughly, I peeled up the masking tape. Normally I would have painted the background hillside and ground next, but I wasn't sure what color I was going to need there. Usually I would have selected the paint palette beforehand and worked that out, but a lot of the painting was being dictated by the subject this time. As the tents were all representations of actual tents, their colors were set. Once they were painted in, I would take a look at the overall composition. If cool colors predominated (blue, purple, green), I would paint a typical Cynagua (northern California) summer hillside, which is a toasted yellow brown. If warmer colors predominated (yellow, orange, red) I would paint a winter/spring hillside in shades of green. The tents were a mixture of both colors so I thought I'd wait and see. And before I started, I had to decide which way the light was falling on the scene, as this would determine which side of each tent was in shadow and which side was brightly lit. A quick look at Johann's photo showed the light coming from the left, so that's the direction I used on everything. In some case this is the opposite of how the light is striking the tents I used in my reference photos, but it's easier to do this differently on a tent than it is to change the highlights and shadows on a face.

First I painted all the light colors on the tents whites, off whites, and yellows. I painted around where the tent ropes and flags were supposed to be wherever possible; it's hard to place a lighter color over a darker one, and the little slivers of exposed paper also let me know where the ropes were supposed to go so I didn't have to add them in totally freehand. Secondly I painted all of the darker colors on the tents. Next I painted in the small figure of Johann's wife (and my sister), Kara of Golden Rivers, in the upper right-hand corner. Kara has a distinctive outfit (yellow underdress with a belted white over-tunic) that she often wears; just painting her in that outfit was enough to identify her to the viewer. Her face was far too small to paint any features; if you were to look very closely, you'd see she's got one of those "Charlie X" Star Trek faces -- utterly blank. But the clothing and the activity (she is rarely seen without some sort of textile work to hand) make the figure recognizable as Kara. This same quality worked for the very small likeness of Harry, the Siamese cat, sitting in the doorway of his miniature tent. Compared to the original photo it's not much like him, but it works in concept. Then the shadowed interiors of the tents were done with the darkest possible shade of color (made by adding the color's complement).

Now a fun bit -- painting the German motto onto the valence of Johann's personal pavilion. The motto is "Torheit ist Tugend ist Torheit ist Tugend ist..." ("Silliness is Virtue is Silliness is...") and Johann actually has this painted on the tent! This had to be painted onto the replica freehand, with white paint that had just a touch of blue added. I mixed a little more blue into the white and went over the letters at the left edge to make them appear shadowed (and any place were the shadow of a tent rope ran across the letters), and added some almost pure white to the letters on the sunlight (right-hand) edge.

Last was the yellow royal pavilion and its shadowed interior. I considered masking off the harp strings but decided against it. Masking always leaves a slight ridge of paint up against the tape (it can be more than slight if you're not carefully to keep paint from pooling up against the edge) and I was worried that it would make the harp strings even more difficult to do, so I just worked around them. They weren't as narrow as they possibly could have been that way, but it made my life easier.

-- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

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