Turned out WAY better than I expected ~or~ How I got super lucky with a scroll

During the final hours of 12th night back in January, I was asked to step up to my LiW duties until Her (then) Majesty Clare and help out during final court. No issues, says I and away I head to the royal room. As we are discussing things, and I'm doing normal LiW stuffs (yanno standing around, ready to help out if needed) we discuss a scroll assignment that went astray.
Being the budding and humble scribe that I am, I of course offer to help fix this issue and commit to getting said scroll completed by Coronation.

Did I write this down? NEWP. Did I remember? Nuh-uh.

Fast forward to about a week and a half before Coronation in March and suddenly the thought of scrolls triggers a memory. HOLY SHIAT, I'm supposed to make a back scroll. Thankfully I start doing some prep work right away and am happily well into research by the time Good Queen Clare sends me an FB message to ask about said scroll..

Am I gonna get it finished and have it at Coronation? You bet your sweet shiny crown I will!!

Even though the good recipient is of a.... European persona persuasion, as I continued to do more and more research for illuminated Suns (of which there are NOT many) I kept returning to a tile mosaic from Calat Al-Hambra (the red fortress). I did Sal's AoA scroll based off a wall mosaic from there back in the day and really liked the style and pen drawings.

The original is red and blue and of course I have the link saved on my work computer and can't find it here at my laptop. :|

Enter in Thursday night after work and dinner is over and I start blocking a scroll. I had sketched exactly what I wanted it to look like at work that day (sadly that purple paper went the way of paper ripper Lyvy). This is the first time I really bothered to grid out my paper and it super duper helped.

About 2ish hours in,
You can see the paint cues.

No work for me the next day, but I do have another pressing craft project that HAS TO BE finished and of course (as anyone who is excited to work on their scroll at home will attest) I just wanted to get back to the scroll dammit! But I press on and get that project done to the point where I'm satisfied a bit with it and VOILA its painting time..

Houston we have a problem.
See the cap to my gold glittery-ish ink broke a few months back when Sal tried to open it for me.. with a pair of vice-grips. Not having anything to put the ink in, i put a plastic baggy over it and then the cap back on as best I could. Well.. Gold ink is now one big block of gold brick.
CURSES!
Its okay, breath, its okay! Its only 4:22. Ogden BluePrint doesn't close until 5. I can certainly make it down there, purchase what I need for less than $5 and get back to paintin' yo.

Lettering inked
Gold laid down and some of the
Diapering being tested.

Blessed be Historic 25th street and the stupid movie industry that likes to use it... The whole 100 block is closed, and not just to traffic, at this late hour its also closed to foot traffic as well. Unless your a cop, or a person with the movie, you are persona non grata. Stoopid heads.
So I travel down to Michaels, and spent about 30 bucks on stuff that MIGHT work.

Home again home again giggity giggity and away we go. I mix a couple bits of this and that together and actually come up with a gold I was super happy with.. Meanwhile though I have to lay the gold then wait.. and wait and wait for it to dry completely before I can add the black.

So I play some War in the North PS3 with Ty to pass some time.

Eventually though, I get to start laying down the black and REALLY trying out the diapering that I have been chomping at the bit to try. The original mosaic had some cut tile work and filigree in it that I couldn't duplicate so I did some research and determined that diapering would be the ideal for this project. I found this epic lesson on the anatomy of diapering and away I went.

Almost done!

My hand got steadier as I did it and I found I absolutely LOVED the detail it provided..

Also, the same talented scribal artist turned me on to a new trick that I now can't live without.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE a drop or two of gum arabic in my paint. OMG it does wonderful stuff to it, makes it easier to spread and work with. Makes it super shiny, just makes the colors pop so much more. Seriously the final result of this scroll looked layered and dimensional as opposed to flat art work.. I cannot go without this magic liquid any longer..

In the end the entire scroll took me about 16 hours. That doesn't count the down time in between ink/paint setting. Unfortunately I wasn't in court when it was given to the lovely lady, but she didn't email me later to tell me she missed everything afterwards because she kept staring at the scroll. Makes my heart glad.

I really really dug this scroll and was happy to get a chance to make it..

A bad pic, but the scroll was awesome if I humbly say so myself..