Black Blanks: First Design, Second Painted

I've gotten a little behind on my blog posts so decided to talk a bit about the first black blank I designed and why it became the second to be finished.

As I discussed in a previous post, when I became interested in doing black scrolls the first hurdle was going to be putting the design on paper. I tried first using the transfer method with white carbon paper and while it worked to a degree, it wasn't terribly efficient and the lines were not as clean as I liked, however I was pretty sure I could salvage it.

The process for this one actually started out digitally. The last few years I've been doing primarily digital art and I decided to draw my design that way, print it in the appropriate size, then transfer it to the black Bristol. This gave me plenty of leeway for cleanup without damaging the paper. The finished design looked like this:

Not a bad design but turned out a bit more complex than I was used to.

After printing I put a piece of white carbon paper between this and the Bristol and used a bit of artist tape to secure it on all four sides to ensure it stayed in place. After I first started tracing I realized the first challenge was going to be making sure I got all the lines without being able to see them being placed.

I worked out a system of methodical tracing and even with regular interruptions by helpful cats, I still managed to get most of them. Most. Not all. Even with care I ended up missing a couple.

I also realized that even tiny shifts in the paper would throw the lines off which became more apparent when it was completed. Once I pulled all three layers apart I knew I was going to have to find a different way to design on black because of the numerous reasons listed in the previous post.

I started with the gold since that was the bulk of the design on this scroll and quickly noticed that the gouache I use would just roll off the applied lines. In some ways this was a good thing - reducing accidental overpaint for example - but covering lines to correct something was going to be an issue. As well, a lot of the beauty of black manuscripts is the black showing through the open spaces as the lines of the art. Instead mine was showing just the white lines.

After adding the gold I put this one aside a couple weeks while I worked on another. I was putzing around about completing it because I had the quilting pencil by this point which made designing much more efficient and clean for me. But after I finished the second scroll and started on a third, my guilt at leaving this one laying around got the better of me and I decided to finish it.

I thought about colors for a bit and decided how to work them. I knew I wanted the dragon to be green like the Midrealm dragon and white for the bird but the leaves took a bit more thought. I finally decided on red and blue for those and they turned out far better than I was expecting. However during the process of using the non-metallic colors the paint rolling off the lines was even more prominent.

I did a bit of testing and discovered black calligraphy ink would cover the carbon and blend in with the paper so only if someone was inspecting it closely would they be able to tell. With shaky hands, however, this was just one more place to make errors; and I made a few of them. More inefficiency. Eventually I finished it to my satisfaction and I'll pass it along to my Kingdom for use as a scroll. If nothing else it should make a lovely AoA or perhaps children's award.

My goal, even when experimenting, is always to produce something usable. While this isn't perfect (or even great) it is a tremendous step forward in learning for me (since I haven't ever done much work in traditional media) and I still managed to produce something that will benefit my Kingdom.