Scarlet Battery Da Vinci Scroll
Construction Notes
Styled after the work of Leonardo Da Vinci with matching handwriting.
- pencil and India ink on paper
- tinting of paper accomplished with liquid watercolor applied using wet-to-wet technique with a sponge and paper towel
“Unto the targets (targets crossed out), fighters of the Known World...
You are NOT safe.
Standing there confidently, distantly, across the field in numbers and resplendent panoply...
Unaware of the danger...
Somewhere Ceirech na Hinnsi and her crack siege team have already chosen, ranged, and aimed at thee.
Dead men walking, thy doom is already nigh.
Did not the great artist and inventor state, "... people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
You are but Things, and She is about to happen to YOU.
Like the terrible but beautiful twister, a force of nature that uproots buildings only to drop them atop the unsuspecting, leaving only your shiny footwear visible...
Ceirech and her engineers.. Those whom she has encouraged, trained and marshaled for many a year.. Are watching you even now...
May your gods have mercy, for she and hers certainly will not.
And for her skill and determination, her dedication and vigilance in all matters siege, would We, Byron and Ariella, King and Queen of Sylvan Aethelmearc, seated safely BEHIND her engines of destruction, celebrate her ability and recognizing that "Artillery is the Queen of Battle" now proclaim her a member of Our Order of the Scarlet Battery, thus Granting her Arms, to whit:
To be held by her and her alone.
Done this 9th day of July, AS 57 at Pax within Our Barony of Thescorre “
Pairing the Extant with the Scroll
The images used in the scroll are images of Da Vinci's seige weapons and random components of other inventions to add to the 'deconstructed/schematic' feel of the scroll.
I first drew everything out in pencil, then inked it with Micron Pigment pen. I felt that the calligraphy belonged over top of the schematics, much like how people scribble in notes on top of drawings.
Images retrieved from https://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Da-Vinci-weapons.html
Things Learned
Add the tinting to the page BEFORE you apply the ink
I ended up extremely lucky with this piece. I did all my ink work before I tinted the page with watercolors, followed by the random ink blot.
Sometimes trying to write backward is more of a headache than what it's worth
I attempted to practice the calligraphy with the traditional Da Vinci backwards handwriting, all I managed to accomplish was give myself a headache