Award of Arms - Agatha von Aachen

Words, Calligraphy, and Illumination by Sabine di Sandra

The words were based on input from the recipients father - he told me that Agatha enjoys the SCA as "a hobby that's a basket for other hobbies." And he told me she is fond of a couple plush bunnies, and recently won an archery competition, so I was excited to include bunny archers.

Most of the illumination based on the Bible of Borso d'Este (15th century Italy)

Rabbit archers from the Smithfield Decretals (~14th century France/England)

Calligraphy was Carolingian from Marc Drogin's book "Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique" modified to use a short s instead of a long s. I wanted to choose a simple script for the piece, since the heraldry will need to be filled in later.

I was rather critical of this piece, because each method I tried to use to get small straight lines on the left caused blobs of ink to form over the (24 hours dried) gauche. Always more to learn. But I do love the colorful Italian tiles, so I am overall quite happy with the piece.