Because, Yes, I Need Another Drain on My Time ...

[dawn_felagund]

... then I am taking up calligraphy and illumination in the SCA.

Yes, I am aware that they are completely separate disciplines. But I'm doing both because the only thing better than one time-draining new hobby is two time-draining new hobbies!

Actually, for all of my adult life, I've wanted to take up calligraphy. When we joined the SCA, that opportunity finally presented itself. Heavy fighter practice occurs every Friday for three hours, and there is also a simultaneous "A&S" (arts and sciences) meeting that goes on at the same place. So far as I can tell, most of A&S is catching up with friends, eating snacks, and doing the occasional craft.

Of course, the ever-ambitious 'gund could not abide with three hours of potential learning/practicing time wasted. (I say this sarcastically, but I know myself: It's totally the truth.) And since Bobby goes to heavy fighter practice every week now, then I thought, "Why not use those three hours to learn something cool?"

So I queried our barony's email list about calligraphy, hoping to find a teacher. I know the basics already, and I have some skill in art from dabbling in various disciplines (primarily sketching and miniatures painting), so all I really wanted was some light guidance: where to start, what to practice, and maybe an occasional critique of my progress.

Instead, I got a reply from a master illuminator: "Well, I can't teach you calligraphy, but if you want to learn illumination ..."

Once I settled down from squeeing and bouncing ecstatically, then I answered that, yes, I would love to learn illumination.

So Master Tristan (the illuminator) and I met on Friday during A&S to pore over samples of his work and talk about whether I'd be interested in furthering my study of illumination. Umm ... yeah? :^D

My philosophy on my own artwork has always been: if it can be done in four square inches, then why not try it in one? In other words, I love detail work; possibly my most treasured art tool is my detail brush that I refuse to let anyone else use (except Bobby, occasionally, under supervision).

Illumination seems a 2D version of miniatures painting. It uses the same kind of paint and many of the same techniques. There are even "non-metallic metallics." I tried my hand at non-metallic metallics last year for the Meryth and Talban models that I painted for digdigil. In the world of miniatures painting--where, admittedly, the bar is not set particularly high--non-metallic metallics are the crowning achievement. Anyway, I digress. Master Tristan's non-metallic metallics were one-hundred times better than my mediocre attempts at the same, but then, he's been doing this for thirty years and is a master illuminator, and I'm just an on-and-off miniatures painter who aspires to illuminations!

Today, at the Ren Fest, I found a book on medieval calligraphy, which I picked up.

So I am very, very excited at this point. My hands are itchy to give it a try; the next time we meet, we're going to look at some original illuminations, then I should get to start! Whee!

Comments

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Hmm, not sure I quite buy into that. Leastways, I am imagining/interpreting it differently.

For one, when you said why do it in 4x4 if it can be done in 1x1, I interpreted that to mean that the final product was 1x1 with the same amount of detail, not that you just freed up fifteen additional 1x1 blocks.

I think I also see it differently because you can't keep that size "restraint" in writing. The more detail you add, the bigger it gets. So a detailed drabble becomes a drouble, becomes a tribble, etc.

I can sort of see what you're thinking, because you're making something and making it more complex with both. I suppose it would be like typing with 4 point font size: 100 words take up less physical space on the page freeing up more blank page for other words. But in my head, thats cheating not the same as adding more detail to a set-size image space. With writing, once the page is full, the page is full. I'll ignore the glories of technology and pretend we are physically writing with, gasp, a pen.

Basically, the way I see it is that the image remains the same size while becoming more detailed while a story gets inevitably larger as detail is added.

And maybe it all comes down to you being an optimist and me being a pessimist. ;D

_{Damnsers html!}

[dawn_felagund]

That italics tag will get you every time. ;)

We are just looking at this differently. Comparing stories and paintings is like comparing apples and oranges because, as you said, "the image remains the same size while becoming more detailed while a story gets inevitably larger as detail is added." Of course, because you can't add detail to prose without adding words, but you can add detail to a picture without requiring a larger workspace.

When I speak of adding detail, I regard a single picture or a single story as an entity. Not a page or a certain working space.

So if we start with a 4x4 painting of, for example, a circus scene, I crunch that down into 1x1 and leave room for a farm, a shopping mall, a public park, a housing development, and an elementary school. So my piece ends up more detailed than the original.

Or if we speak of a story about a circus, most people would manage that in 1,000 words, but I need 10,000 because of all of the ornate detail.

So the level of detail within a single story or piece of artwork tends to be higher for me than for my peers. And I think this comes down to perceiving the world in this way and wanting to pass these observations on to an audience.

Believe me, I envy the so-called "economical" writers! :^D

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

Stupid tags. The 's' is for sucks! :D

When I speak of adding detail, I regard a single picture or a single story as an entity. Not a page or a certain working space.

As I was writing my response, I guessed this was how you were viewing it, and it makes sense, but I worked hard to keep that theory/view from entering my argument too much, or else there would be no debate - I'd just be debating with myself! :)

Of course, this is a handy skill to have when bored and alone. I assign one of my muses a side and we discuss. This might be called schizophrenia in some circles...:D

See, I like detail, but it seems very easy to fall into the trap of too much detail - detail more than complexity (in terms of writing especially). I know that poorly written detail is boring for me to read, and I cannot tell what is good versus poor detail inclusion in my own writing, so I tend to exclude more than I include. Plus I have a habit of getting stuck on detail and never getting anywhere. (As I might've mentioned before, at some point.) I guess it also depends on where one's individual threshold of complexity versus clutter is.

_{I could use some wordiness about now. I could honestly sum up my essay in a few sentences. And I think I would need 500x spacing to take up five pages.}

[dawn_felagund]

Schizophrenia?! I prefer dissociative identity disorder. ;)

I've tried to control the detail in my writing. Once upon a time, if I saw it, I described it. Now, I'm trying to teach myself to choose the details that are relevant to the plot or characterization or symbolic somehow or contribute to the mood/tone/voice.

Not surprisingly, the number-one criticism I get on Critters: "This is too long." Which I don't mind when the Critter feels that the wordiness hurts the story but pisses me off when I get, "This is too long because most horror/fantasy stories aren't this long." *teethgnash*

What's your essay on? I might have been the only fool in uni who would hear "15-page essay" and say, "Yessss!" because that I could cut loose and write down everything in my head. ;)

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

I like to pretend that I maintain a completely separate identity from my muses and that their reflection is in no way presented to the "Real" world. ;)

"This is too long because most horror/fantasy stories aren't this long."

Ok, that is annoying. Especially since whenever I'm reading a good fantasy story, I don't ever want it to end!

Essay prompt: "What are the obligations of the United States toward the world when it comes to these very fundamental issues of mass murder and misery? Can we just ignore these events and claim that they do not represent a challenge to our national security interests or do we have a moral duty to try and ameliorate them and improve the human dignity of the globe’s most vulnerable citizens? Given your position on these questions, what should be our policy toward the current “genocide” in the Darfur region of Sudan?" (5 pages) So really, the intro above is an actual start, minus the Maedhros/Fingon bit. *slaps self* Think I can use Melkor as an example?