The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

The Portrait

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

"Having spent an inordinate amount of time on the learning curve for painting a convincing marble, I was driven to near insanity by the mechanics of the shadows. For some reason I just could not get the shadows right. Theoretically one can use math (geometry, actually) to plot all the angles off an object and get the shapes of the cast shadow (any good book on perspective drawing will usually have a chapter on shadows and reflections, both of which are usually subject to some sort of perspective distortion) but my brain just refused to go there. Math? I never would have started this if I had known there was going to be math involved! Eventually I threw up my hands in disgust and turned to Aldith in hopes that she could figure it out, as she can draw people out of her head and I can't -- I could only cross my fingers and see if she could draw the shadows of people out of her head, too. She came to my assistance and after studying the scene for a few moments, pointed out that the light source wasn't just to the left, but high and overhead to the left -- there should be very little shadow at all, and that should be mostly underneath the seated figure. Taking up a brush with a small amount of violet paint, she proceeded to lightly brush in the small area which needed to be shadowed -- I had been making the shadow too elongate and large. Yes, that was the problem -- now things finally looked right! We also decided that the hair on the figure was too light in color and I darkened it up by using some undiluted raw sienna.

"The miniature scene within the enclosing large letter "B" was completed at a Scriptorium (a session where scribes get together and work, exchange ideas, and teach in an informal setting). The columns were painted in, then everything worked over very lightly with a damp brush to "soften" the veining and and the shadows. The finishing touch to the floor was to add the joins (cracks) between the marble floor tiles. I am always amazed at how adding just one bit of detail can distract the eye -- until then, I had been unsatisfied with the marble, which I felt looked like a big yellow ochre blotchy mess with raw seinna scribbles walking all over it. All of a sudden things came together, and the lines also lent a feeling of depth. The wooden stool was painted and the leather shoe was repainted to make it lighter and warmer in tone. The sword was painted twice but something still wasn't right about it -- not sure if it was the color on it or the shapes of the reflections on it, and the hand holding the sword was too close in hue to the fog bank in the background, so something needed to be done about that. I would contemplate the entire scene and probably do more work on it the following day.

"As I looked at the scene before packing the scroll away to leave the Scriptorium, Aldith looked over my shoulder. "Sure got a lot of blue infinity in that sky, huh?" The comment haunted me all the way home. When I set the scroll up and looked at it from a distance the next day at home, I knew she was right. Curse it -- the composition still wasn't balanced." -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

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